Thank you.
This is about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provision that allows coastal states to have sovereign rights beyond 200 nautical miles if you can prove that the seabed and subsoil is actually an extension of your land mass, and because the Arctic Ocean is an enclosed ocean, which was once all together and pulled apart, almost all of it is continental in nature. One of the five coastal states will have sovereign rights over some part of it.
As a result, there are also lots of overlaps. The process is a scientific one. You're proving to the commission responsible in New York that it's continental in nature. They're not deciding on boundaries; they are only deciding whether it is continental in nature or not.
The question is correct: There have been some pretty expansive submissions to the commission in New York, showing a large area of territory that they say is continental shelf, but it doesn't mean that they own it.
Because of the boundaries involving a lot of overlaps, all the coastal states will have to sit down someday and arrange among themselves where the boundaries are. All of the coastal states continue to adhere to the Ilulissat Declaration, which says that they will do that in a peaceful way and in accordance with international law.
As for how long that will take, the commission in New York is terribly backed up. They have more submissions than they ever thought they'd get when they created the convention, so right now it's taking many years, once a state files, for them to review the submission. That's something we're working on in New York to try to speed up the process, but unfortunately, right now it takes a very long time.