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Ruling has implications for oil, minerals
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Non-EU Norway has sovereignty over Svalbard Arctic islands
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State can sue Norway -expert
(Adds reaction, detail)
By Gwladys Fouche
OSLO, March 20 (Reuters) - Norway's Supreme Court ruled
on Monday that EU ships cannot fish for snow crab off the
Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic in a case also deciding who
has the right to explore for oil and minerals in the region.
At stake was whether EU vessels had the right to catch snow
crab, whose meat is considered a delicacy by gourmets in Japan
and South Korea, in the same way as Norwegian vessels did.
But what is valid for the snow crab, a sedentary species
living on the seabed, is also valid for oil, minerals and other
resources, the Supreme Court ruled in a 2019 case.
A Latvian fisheries company, SIA North Star, applied to the
non-EU country in 2019 for a fishing licence to catch the
species, but was turned down on the basis that only Norwegian
vessels can.
SIA North Star argued it had that right under the 1920
Svalbard Treaty, which grants Norway sovereignty over the Arctic
islands with the condition that other signatories have access to
their territorial waters.
"The company does not have the right to catch snow crab on
the continental shelf outside Svalbard," the Supreme Court said
in its verdict, which was unanimous.
If SIA North Star had won that right, it would have meant other states than Norway would have had the right of access to the natural resources on the continental shelf around Svalbard. While the legal recourse for the fisheries company are now over, a state may bring a case against Norway, said Oeystein Jensen, a professor of international law at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo.
"It will continue as an international legal dispute in the sense that other states may not necessarily accept this as the final solution of this issue," Jensen told Reuters.
"It is a domestic court decision, (so) an international court can also hear this question at a later stage." (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik, Louise Heavens and Angus MacSwan)
Twitter handle: @gfouche))