Canada, Denmark should turn Hans Island into a condominium: academics

Arctic experts from Canada and Denmark are proposing a novelsolution to who controls an ice-bound speck of an island midwaybetween the two countries.

Turn Hans Island into a condominium.

"It would resolve a long-standing dispute that, althoughinsignificant, has some small potential to cause friction in the
future," said Michael Byers, a University of British Columbiainternational law professor.

Today, Byers and a Danish colleague are to present aproposal suggesting that Canada and Denmark share sovereignty overthe 1.2-square-kilometre pimple of rock that protrudes from theKennedy Channel between Ellesmere Island and Greenland.

Like a residential building where control is shared among thepeople who live there, the two countries could decide to co-manageHans Island.

They could hand off day-to-day management of the disputed land toInuit from Nunavut and Greenland. Or they could declare the wholething a park, based on the model of the Waterton-GlacierInternational Peace Park linking Alberta and Montana.

There are precedents.

France and Spain have shared control over an island in the middleof the Bidasoa River since 1659. Pheasant Island is managed bymunicipalities on both shores.

Control over Hans Island has no impact on rights to anyresources, all of which are determined by other treaties, said
Byers. Going condo would simply remove Hans Island from a list ofirritants, however minor, between Canada and its Arctic neighbours.

"There have been tensions in the Arctic in some issues," ByerssaidWednesdayfrom Denmark. "The new federal government might seethis as a way to signal a change in approach."

Denmark's foreign minister has already seen the proposal, Byerssaid.

"I'm confident he's willing to explore the possibility."

Currently, Canada and Denmark agree to disagree on who owns HansIsland. There have been reports over the years about talks andwillingness to move, but nothing has changed.

The militaries of both countries periodically visit to remove theother guy's flag and leave a bottle of Danish schnapps or Canadianwhisky.

Under the terms of a 2005 agreement, both countries haveagreed to inform the other before they visit.