‘It Is Not Down on Any Map’: Sovereignty, Territory, and Jurisdiction on an Arctic Ice Island

Steinberg, Philip

Abstract

Islands have a complicated and, at times, paradoxical relationship with the sovereign state. Some islands have been lauded as prototypical models for the idealised hard-bordered spaces of state sovereignty; others have been written off as barbarian spaces beyond the limits of state civilisation; still others have been embraced as spaces of partial incorporation, where the state lacks the full package of rights and responsibilities that normally accrue in a sovereign territory. These complexities of the relationship between states and islands multiply when the status of the island as an ‘island’ is itself called into question, including when an island does not meet the standard definition of a body of land surrounded by water. In this article, each of these dimensions of the island-state relationship are attended to through an investigation of statehood and sovereignty on the ‘lawless island’ of T-3, a slab of glacial ice that, from 1952 through 1978, served as a United States Navy research station as it drifted across the Arctic Ocean. Further, this article explores how the principle of Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction has been mobilised to transform T-3, and other ‘lawless islands’ around the world, into ‘islands of law’.

Citation

Steinberg, P. (online). ‘It Is Not Down on Any Map’: Sovereignty, Territory, and Jurisdiction on an Arctic Ice Island. Geopolitics, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2458528

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 20, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Feb 2, 2025
• Deposit Date: Feb 18, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 18, 2025
• Journal: Geopolitics
• Print ISSN: 1465-0045
• Electronic ISSN: 1557-3028
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2458528
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3489658