Arctic Council

The Arctic Council is an inter-governmental organization consisting of the eight Arctic nations (Canada, United States, Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland) and established through the Ottawa Declaration of 1996.  The Council was created for a multitude of reasons, but in short, serves to support and promote cooperation as to circumpolar affairs.  The chairmanship for the Council is rotated every two-years and is currently held by Norway; Canada was the first nation to hold the chairmanship from 1996-98.

The Council has six working groups with each having its own specific mandate to fulfill; working groups produce advisory material that is beneficial for the Council and its member governments.  Recently, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme released the much anticipated Arctic Oil and Gas 2007 report, which assessed the social, economic and environmental impacts as to the current and future developments of the oil and gas industry.

An interesting component to the structure of the Council is the inclusion of permanent participants.  There are currently six permanent participants, all of which are international Aboriginal organizations that participate and consult with member nations and the Council on a regular basis.  From a Canadian standpoint this is beneficial as Canada’s Arctic population is largely composed of Aboriginal descent.

Senior officials from the eight Arctic nations along with the permanent participants meet twice per year to oversee and discuss the Council’s work — providing guidance and direction.