“We see no need to develop new comprehensive regime.”

Arctic nations say they'll use existing treaties to sort out conflicting territorial claims, while safeguarding the environment as the race for polar resources accelerates.

The five nations with Arctic coastlines – Canada, the United States, Denmark, Norway and Russia – met in Ilulissat, Greenland late last month and agreed they know best how do deal with a rapidly changing circumpolar world.

"The Arctic Ocean stands at the threshold of significant changes," the Ilulissat declaration reads. "Climate change and the melting of ice have a potential impact on vulnerable ecosystems, the livelihoods of local inhabitants and indigenous communities, and the potential exploitation of natural resources."

The countries pledged to use the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea to sort out disputes over territory.

And they said the Arctic Council – made up of the Ilulissat five, plus Sweden, Finland and Iceland, has already reached agreements on navigation, environmental monitoring and scientific cooperation.

"We therefore see no need to develop a new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean," the declaration stated.

Duane Smith, president of the Canadian chapter of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said the five governments have a right to meet on polar issues, but said the declaration, while mentioning potential impacts on indigenous peoples in the North, failed to invite Inuit and other groups to take part in future talks.

"Our Canadian land claims and self-government processes makes it mandatory for the federal government to include us", Smith said in a news release. "Yet the declaration that [federal natural resources] minister [Gary] Lunn signed on behalf of Canada ignores the role we should be playing."

It's also unclear how the United States, which has a long-festering territorial dispute with Canada in the Beaufort Sea, fits into the Ilulissat vision.

The U.S. hasn't signed onto the Law of the Sea, and while the administration of President George W. Bush is said to support the treaty, conservative Republican members of Congress, fearful of the treaty's impact on American sovereignty, continue to thwart attempts at ratification.

Canada also has a dispute with Denmark over tiny Hans Island off Ellesmere Island, and Russia and Norway have squabbled about their ocean boundaries.

That prompted one environmental group to dismiss the meeting as a scheme to divvy up polar resources.

"They are going to use the Law of the Sea to carve up the raw materials, but they are ignoring the law of common sense: these are the same fossil fuels driving climate change in the first place," Mike Townsley, a Greenpeace International spokesperson, told the Guardian newspaper.

But Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møeller said the meeting was a way to head off potential conflicts over the Arctic.

"We have hopefully quelled all myths about a race for the North Pole once and for all," the Guardian quoted him as saying.