The Ilulissat Declaration was announced on May 28, 2008 by five Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

 circumpolar

Circumpolar

The term circumpolar may refer to:* circumpolar navigation: to travel the world "vertically" traversing both of the poles* Antarctic region** Antarctic Circle** the Antarctic Circumpolar Current** Subantarctic** List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands...

 nations meeting at the political level during the Arctic Ocean Conference

Arctic Ocean Conference

The inaugural Arctic Ocean Conference was held in Ilulissat, Greenland May 27 — May 29, 2008. Five countries, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States, discussed key issues relating to the Arctic Ocean. The meeting was significant because of its plans for environmental regulation,...

 in Ilulissat

Ilulissat

Ilulissat is a town in the Qaasuitsup municipality in western Greenland, located approximately north of the Arctic Circle. With the population of 4,546 as of 2010, it is the third-largest settlement in Greenland, after Nuuk and Sisimiut....

, Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

 to discuss the Arctic ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

, climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, the protection of the marine environment, maritime

Sailing

Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...

 safety, and division of emergency responsibilities if new shipping route

Shipping route

A shipping route is a trade route used by merchant ships.Early routes usually were coastal in nature as navigators had to rely on the coastal landmarks...

s are opened.

One of the chief goals written into the declaration was blockage of any "new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean". An additional pledge for "the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims," was expected as the conference invitation originated in 2007 as a consequence of several jurisdictional disputes, including Hans Island

Hans Island

Hans Island is a small, uninhabited barren knoll measuring , located in the centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait—the strait that separates Ellesmere Island from northern Greenland and connects Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea...

 and Arktika 2007

Arktika 2007

Arktika 2007 was a 2007 expedition in which Russia performed the first ever crewed descent to the ocean bottom at the North Pole, as part of research related to the 2001 Russian territorial claim, one of many territorial claims in the Arctic, made possible, in part, because of Arctic shrinkage...

.

The conference, held May 27 to May 29, 2008, was hosted by Per Stig Møller

Per Stig Møller

Per Stig Møller was Culture Minister of Denmark. He has been a member of Folketinget for the Conservative People's Party since 1984, and was Minister for the Environment from December 18, 1990 to January 24, 1993 as part of the Cabinet of Poul Schlüter IV and Foreign Minister from November 27,...

, Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Hans Enoksen

Hans Enoksen

Hans Enoksen is a Greenlandic politician who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Greenland from 2002 to 2009.A Greenlandic monoglot, he has been a member of the Parliament of Greenland since 1995...

, Greenlandic Prime Minister. The key ministerial level attendees included Sergey Lavrov

Sergey Lavrov

Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov is the Foreign Minister of Russia. Prior to that, Lavrov was a Soviet diplomat and Russia's ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. Lavrov speaks Russian, English, French and Sinhala....

, Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre

Jonas Gahr Støre

Jonas Gahr Støre is the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, having been appointed to Jens Stoltenberg's second cabinet on 17 October 2005. He represents the Norwegian Labour Party.-Personal life:...

, Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gary Lunn

Gary Lunn

Gary Vincent Lunn, PC, MP is the former Canadian Member of Parliament for the British Columbia riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands. He served in the House of Commons from 1997 to 2011, first as a member of the Reform Party of Canada and subsequently as a member of the Canadian Alliance and the...

, Canadian Minister for Natural Resources, and John Negroponte

John Negroponte

John Dimitri Negroponte is an American diplomat. He is currently a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs...

, American Deputy Secretary of State.

Some members of the Arctic Council

Arctic Council

The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum which addresses issues faced by the Arctic governments and the indigenous people of the Arctic.- History of the Arctic Council :...

, including indigenous peoples, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

were not invited to the conference and not party to the declaration.

External links

• Full text of the declaration