Lawfare on Thin Ice: Using Courts, Treaties, and Tribunals to Win Territory Without Shots

In the Arctic, territory can be pursued without a single shot - not because conflict has vanished, but because it is often routed into paperwork, procedure, and proof. As coastlines are re-read through maritime law and seabed geology becomes a legal argument, states increasingly compete by filing claims, challenging jurisdiction, and shaping the terms on which a dispute can be decided. The result is a theatre of influence where victory is measured in recommendations, rulings, and implementation pathways as much as in patrol routes or headlines.

Lawfare on Thin Ice explains how this contest works from the inside out. It shows why forum selection is never a technical afterthought, how governments build evidentiary records that can survive scrutiny, and why treaty interpretation often turns on narrative choices as much as textual ones. Moving across courts, tribunals, commissions, and diplomatic bargaining, the book traces the constraints that make legal strategy potent but incomplete: uncertain science, contested jurisdiction, and the persistent question of what makes states comply when they would rather not. Along the way, it clarifies how international adjudication can lower risk by creating procedures and off-ramps - and how it can raise risk when interim measures, public rhetoric, or maximalist positions narrow the space for compromise.

Written for students, general readers, and policy-facing analysts, the book offers a practical lens for reading Arctic disputes as strategic action with clear limits. Readers will come away able to ask sharper questions of any new claim or case: What evidence is being prepared, and for which forum? What would implementation require politically, not just legally? And how might a legal move interact with escalation management rather than substituting for it? The Arctic may be cold, but the contest over rules, authority, and compliance is already heating up.