Canada filed a submission with the UN in order to determine the limits of its continental shelf in the Arctic, states the website of the country's Department of Global Affairs. "After more than a decade's worth of scientific and legal work to determine the limits of Canada's undersea landmass in the Arctic, Canada today (on May 23 — editor's note) filed a 2,100‑page submission with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf at United Nations headquarters," according to the news release.

This was reported to be the first step in the process of gaining international recognition of the country's outer limits of the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.

"Canada is committed to furthering its leadership in the Arctic," said Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland. "Defining our continental shelf is vital to ensuring our sovereignty and to serving the interests of all people, including Indigenous peoples, in the Arctic. Today's submission is a major step toward securing legal and international recognition of the outer limits of Canada's continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean."

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea holds that coastal states have sovereign rights over the natural resources of their seabed and their continental shelf's subsoil. According to the submission, Canada's continental shelf area in the Arctic Ocean totals 1.2 million square kilometers.