The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum, established by the Ottawa Declaration on September 19, 1996, to foster cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the eight Arctic States. Its core mandate is to address common Arctic issues, particularly sustainable development and environmental protection in the region, explicitly excluding matters of military security. The Council was created to build upon the foundation of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS), a non-binding agreement signed in 1991 that focused primarily on environmental issues.
The Council's mechanism is based on consensus among its eight member states: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States. It operates through Ministerial meetings held every two years, Senior Arctic Officials (SAO) meetings, and six permanent Working Groups (e.g., AMAP, PAME) that conduct scientific and technical work. A unique feature is the inclusion of six organizations representing Arctic Indigenous Peoples as Permanent Participants with full consultation rights. The Council has successfully provided a forum for negotiating legally binding agreements, such as the Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue in the Arctic (2011).
India is connected to the Council as a non-Arctic state, having been admitted as an Observer in 2013. Recently, the Council's operations were significantly impacted after February 2022, when the seven western Arctic states paused their involvement following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While diplomatic-level meetings remain paused, consensus was reached in February 2024 to resume virtual Working Group meetings and scientific cooperation, demonstrating the Council's resilience and adaptation to geopolitical constraints.