Building Common Interests in the Arctic Ocean with Global Inclusion: Volume 2 (Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability)

This book contains an inclusive compilation of perspectives about the Arctic Ocean with contributions that extend from Indigenous residents and early career scientists to Foreign Ministers, involving perspectives across the spectrum of subnational-national-international jurisdictions.  The Arctic Ocean is being transformed with global climate warming into a seasonally ice-free sea, creating challenges as well as opportunities that operate short-to-long term, underscoring the necessity to make informed decisions across a continuum of urgencies from security to sustainability time scales.   The Arctic Ocean offers a case study with lessons that are especially profound at this moment when humankind is exposed to a pandemic, awakening a common interest in survival across our globally-interconnected civilization unlike any period since the Second World War.  This second volume in the Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability series reveals that building global inclusion involves common interests to address changes effectively “for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.”

PAUL ARTHUR BERKMAN is a science diplomat, applying, training and refining informed decisionmaking to balance national interests and common interests for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.  He wintered in Antarctica on a SCUBA research expedition with Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1981 and became a Visiting Professor at the University of California Los Angeles the following year at the age of 23, beginning to teach about science diplomacy.  Paul travelled to all seven continents before the age of thirty, leading to his textbook on Science into Policy: Global Lessons from Antarctica.  From research into action, as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar, Paul chaired the Antarctic Treaty Summit at the Smithsonian Institution, resulting in the first book on Science Diplomacy as well as a Congressional Resolution adopted with unanimous consent by the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate.  The followingyear, applying skills of science diplomacy, he co-directed the first formal dialogue between NATO and Russia regarding Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean, which became the title of an edited book with over 75,000 downloads.  Prof. Berkman joined Tufts University from 2015-2020 at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he founded the first Science Diplomacy Center in the world in an academic institution, which is now directed through EvREsearch LTD, where Prof. Berkman has been the Chief Executive Officer since 1999.  In 2021, Paul also became Director (from Boston) of the Science Diplomacy Center at MGIMO University in Moscow, creating a unique position to build common interests among allies and adversaries alike.  This objective has been explicit throughout his coordinating the Arctic Options / Pan-Arctic Options projects from 2013-2022 with support from national science agencies in the United States, Russian Federation, Norway, France, China and Canada.  Prof. Berkman is a Faculty Associate with the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School and Associate Director of Science Diplomacy in the Harvard-MIT Public Disputes Program as well as an Associated Fellow with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), training science diplomacy and informed decisionmaking with the diplomatic corps of many foreign ministries as well as next-generation leaders inclusively.  Paul is senior editor of the Springer book series on Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability, further triangulating education, research and leadership as elements of lifelong learning “for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.”   For his international, interdisciplinary and inclusive contributions, Prof. Berkman has been honoured with awards in the United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Russian Federation, Norway, New Zealand and Japan.  Most recently,the United States Department of State and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs awarded Paul the Fulbright Arctic Chair 2021-2022.   Paul is happily married with two daughters.

ALEXANDER N. VYLEGZHANIN, Doctor of Law, Professor, is a Head of the Program of International Law, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO- University). He is currently elected as a Vice-president of the Russian Association of International Law and a Vice-President of the Russian Association of the Law of the Sea. He is nominated by the Russian Federation to the list of arbitrators according to Annex VII of UNCLOS. He is also elected as a Member of the Presidium of the Committee of Experts on the Arctic and Antarctic of the Council of Federation (the Upper Chamber of the Russian Parliament). His major interest include General International Law, International Law of the Sea, Legal Regimes of Natural Resources, and Boundaries the Arctic. He has publicized a wide arrayof books on international issues, mainly in Russian. Prof. Vylegzhanin was awarded a rank of Academician by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (2000), and a Medal by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (2001) for his book “Legal Regime of Marine Natural Resources” (2001, in Russian).

ORAN R. YOUNG is a research professor at the Marine Science Institute and professor emeritus and co-director of the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California (Santa Barbara). His research focuses on theories of environmental governance with applications to issues relating to climate change, marine systems, and the polar regions. He also does comparative research on environmental governance in China and the United States. Dr. Young served for six years as founding chair of the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the US National Academy of Sciences. He chaired the Scientific Steering Committee of the international project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC). He was a founding co-chair of the Global Carbon Project and from 2005 to 2010 chaired the Scientific Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change. An expert on 3 Arctic issues, Dr. Young chaired the Steering Committee of the Arctic Governance Project and is the science advisor to the North Pacific Arctic Conferences. Past service in this realm includes co-chair of the Working Group on Arctic International Relations, member of the US Polar Research Board, founding board member of the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, vice-president of the International Arctic Science Committee, chair of the Board of Governors of the University of the Arctic, consultant to the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, and co-chair of the 2004 Arctic Human Development Report. He is the author of more than 20 books. His recent books include Institutional Dynamics: Emergent Patterns in International Environmental Governance (2010) and On Environmental Governance: Sustainability, Efficiency, and Equity(2013). His forthcoming book is entitled Governing Complex Systems: Sustainability in the Anthropocene.
DAVID BALTON. During most of the development of this book, David Balton was a Senior Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Polar Institute.  He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries in the Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science, attaining the rank of Ambassador in 2006.  He was responsible for coordinating the development of U.S. foreign policy concerning oceans and fisheries, and overseeing U.S. participation in international organizations dealing with these issues.  His portfolio included managing U.S. foreign policy issues relating to the Arctic and Antarctica.  Ambassador Balton functioned as the lead U.S. negotiator on a wide range of agreements in the field of oceans and fisheries and chaired numerous international meetings.  During the U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2015-2017), he served as Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials.  His prior Arctic Council experience included co-chairing the Arctic Council Task Forces that produced the 2011 Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue in the Arctic and the 2013 Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic.  He separately chaired negotiations that produced the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean.  Ambassador Balton now serves as Executive Director of the U.S. Arctic Executive Steering Committee.
OLE ØVRETVEIT served as Director of Arctic Frontiers for eight years through 2020, building Norwegian and international partnerships for this global scientific conference on economic, societal and environmental sustainable growth in the north that began in 2006.  Among his initiatives is the Memorandum of Understanding that he signed on behalf of Arctic Frontiers to enable the international, interdisciplinary and inclusive contributions in this second volume of the Informed Decisionmaking for Sustainability book series.  Subsequently, Mr. Øvretveit served as Director of Science to Policy for the Sustainable Development Goals at the University of Bergen, where he received his Master’s degree in Comparative Politics.  Ole Øvretveit now is providing leadership with Initiative West, a think tank focusing on sustainable ocean economy, societal growth and the green transition from the west coast of Norway.