There has been increasing dissatisfaction with the way Arctic-wide cooperation under the Arctic Council operates. Scholars and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have taken up the idea of finding a new direction for the work of the Council by drawing on the experience of the other pole, the Antarctic, and its well-established structures of governance. At first sight, this may seem like a misdirected idea, given that the two poles show more differences than similarities: the Arctic consists of ocean surrounded by continents, whereas the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean; the Antarctic has no permanent human habitation, while the Arctic is inhabited by indigenous peoples and other local communities. Yet, the two polar areas also resemble each other in many respects. Both have extreme climatic conditions, receiving less radiation from the sun than other parts of the globe, and the ecosystems have had to adapt to very cold and dark environments with short and light-filled growing seasons. In such conditions, the ecosystems are simple, containing only a few key species, and are thus more vulnerable to human-induced pollution than those of more temperate areas.

Estonia restored its independence in 1991 following the unsuccessful coup attempt for in Moscow. Within six months, the Constitutional Assembly created a draft of a new constitution based on Estonia's constitution of 1938. Estonia's subsequent legal reforms have been based on the Constitution adopted in 1992 reinstating a parliamentary democracy founded on legal continuity. Supreme power is vested in the people, and this power is exercised through a single chamber parliament.

Estonia employs a civil law system and follows the legal traditions of continental Europe – there is a distinction between public and private law. The main source of law is written (statutory) law. Case law has no precedent value. However, the decisions of the Estonian Supreme Court are used as a subsidiary source of law in interpreting and founding the general principles of law. This follows expressis verbis from the Estonian Code of Criminal Procedure, which states in article 2 subsection 4 that the decisions of the Supreme Court in issues which are not regulated by other sources of criminal procedural law but which arise in the application of law are also sources of criminal procedure law. And they are de facto in other areas of law: private law, in particular administrative law, as well. Thus one could say that step-by-step the judgments of the Supreme Court gain more and more importance in shaping the legal system and legal order of Estonia.

Article 292 of the United Nations 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (Convention) reads:

1. Where the authorities of a state party have detained a vessel flying the flag of another state party and it is alleged that the detaining state has not complied with the provisions of this Convention for the prompt release of the vessel or its crew upon posting of a reasonable bond or other financial security, the question of release from detention may be submitted to any court or tribunal agreed upon by the parties or, failing such agreement within 10 days from the time of detention, to a court or tribunal accepted by the detaining state under article 287 or to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, unless the parties otherwise agree.

2. The application for release may be made only by or on behalf of the flag state of the vessel.

3. The court or tribunal shall deal without delay with the application for release and shall deal only with the question of release, without prejudice to the merits of any case before the appropriate domestic forum against the vessel, its owner or its crew. The authorities of the detaining state remain competent to release the vessel or its crew at any time.

4. Upon the posting of the bond or other financial security determined by the court or tribunal, the authorities of the detaining state shall comply promptly with the decision of the court or tribunal concerning the release of the vessel or its crew.

Protection and preservation of the marine environment is a topical issue around the Baltic Sea. Not least does it refer to vessel-source pollution. The Baltic Sea is a particularly vulnerable sea area with its narrow waters, often severe climatic conditions, and growing tanker traffic, especially to and from Russian ports at the far end of the Gulf of Finland. By way of example, oil transports in the Gulf of Finland tripled in 1995 to 2003, recently reaching to some 78 million tons a year.

Let me start with a very Brief History of Electronic Information System for International Law (EISIL). More than five years ago, the American Society of International Law (ASIL) began exploring how to bring its expertise and resources to bear on efforts to sort out and improve access to international law information on the World Wide Web. ASIL received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2000 to build an international law information gateway and began the process of assessing how this might be accomplished.

The Estonian Legal Language Centre, initially known as the Estonian Legislative Support Centre and later on as the Estonian Legal Translation Centre, started operation in 1995 as a state agency under the governance of the Estonian State Chancellery. It was funded from the state budget.