Legislation
The Svalbard Treaty was signed on 9 February 1920 and came into effect on 14 August 1925. The treaty defines Svalbard as all islands, islets and skerries from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. It secures full Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago, but contains several restrictions: peaceful use of the islands, the non-discrimination of citizens and companies of signatory countries, the obligation to protect the natural environment and limitations in taxation. The treaty has 39 signatories.
The Svalbard Act was passed on 17 June 1925 and establishes that Svalbard is "part of the Kingdom of Norway". It further stipulates that civil law, criminal law and procedural law applies to Svalbard, but that other provisions only apply if specifically stipulated. As of 2008 there were 31 regulations which applied to Svalbard. The act also dictates the administration of Svalbard, notably establishing the governor and the Commissioner of Mines.
The Svalbard Environmental Protection Act was passed on 15 June 2001 and took effect on 1 July 2002, replacing various regulations. The act was created to secure a continuous, nearly untouched natural environment on Svalbard, particularly regarding wilderness, landscape, flora, fauna and cultural heritage. The act is enacted by the Ministry of the Environment, the Climate and Pollution Agency, the governor, the Directorate for Cultural Heritage and the Directorate for Nature Management. The act is supplemented by various regulations. Specific issues addressed in the act include the protection of plants and all remains of all human activity up to 1945. It imposes limitations on traffic in permitted areas, particularly motorized vehicles, but allows locals to operate snowscooters in more areas than tourists. Two-thirds of Svalbard is protected through national parks and nature reserves.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Svalbard
Famous quotes containing the word legislation:
“No legislation can suppress nature; all life rushes to reproduction; our procreative faculties are matured early, while passion is strong, and judgment and self-restraint weak. We cannot alter this, but we can alter what is conventional. We can refuse to brand an act of nature as a crime, and to impute to vice what is due to ignorance.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)
“The laboring man and the trade-unionist, if I understand him, asks only equality before the law. Class legislation and unequal privilege, though expressly in his favor, will in the end work no benefit to him or to society.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)