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agreement signed under the auspices of the Arctic Council, offers a useful framework for coordinated
response to oil spill; but in addition to not being enforceable, it does not place many duties on the
parties. Even so, the Arctic Council plays an important role in discourse-shaping and in the promotion
of values and standards of best practices.
Second, when it comes to national and regional levels, two main features have been highlighted. First:
the entanglement of indigenous and public rights and authority. Both governments in Greenland and
Nunavut are public, but very diverse settings are in place. Nevertheless, in both cases devolution
happens to be implemented at the expense of the local level. The entanglement of indigenous and
public rights and authority constitutes a source of tension in political relations, observed both in
Nunavut and in Greenland, and it also generates inefficient processes of decision-making resulting in
high court costs for Nunavut.
Third, as far as non-governmental actors are concerned, the WWF and the ICC, through their
respective statuses in the Arctic Council, have the opportunity to play a constructive role in raising
awareness on important issues and producing scientific reports. As for corporations, they play a crucial
role in the governance of offshore hydrocarbon activities, especially when the goal setting approach
is favoured in the regulation, thereby raising the issue of corporate social responsibility. In this context,
regulatory and advisory agencies enjoy very different degrees of leverages. In both cases regulation is
not the be all and end all, and the issue of enforcement remains central as activities take place in
remote areas lacking infrastructure (for instance the disposal of drilling wastes