There’s a “very real danger” of running into polar bears in Svalbard, warns the official website for the Arctic tourist destination. Of course, the opportunity to spot a bear – from a safe distance – is one of the main reasons that travellers fly or sail to the archipelago halfway between Norway and the North Pole. Still, adventurers not accompanied by guides are urged to pack flare guns, thunder flashes and a .308 Win calibre rifle – in case a bear encounter turns ugly.

That guns are one of life’s necessities on Svalbard is just one idiosyncratic feature of one of the world’s northernmost human settlements. (The guns are not allowed inside buildings and must be unloaded in town; this is Norway, not the Wild West.)

Other tourist drawcards to Svalbard include the midnight sun and polar nights – there is no daylight from November to February. Then there is the Global Seed Vault, where millions of plant seeds, including from Australia, are kept chilled in a bunker carved into a mountain; and the world’s northernmost statue of Vladimir Lenin, in the ghost town Pyramiden. And for Arctic nosh, Svalbard’s main settlement, Longyearbyen, offers a Michelin-star restaurant where diners graze on roe and elderflower and reindeer carpaccio while quaffing wines from a 20,000-bottle cellar.

Other facts about Svalbard are more prosaic but offbeat. If you need to give birth, you must fly elsewhere. If you die, your body must be flown out (nothing decomposes in the frozen ground). Even the way place has been run, since Count Wedel Jarlsberg of Norway and others signed a treaty on February 9, 1920, is unusual.

Australia is actually a party to the Spitsbergen (or Svalbard) Treaty, which covers some 62,000 square kilometres of glacial islands and fjords dotted with walruses and snow geese. Far from being a relic of a post-World War I era, the treaty is still the subject of debate while also providing inspiration for resolving gnarly international tensions today.

So how do things run in Svalbard? And what could its treaty possibly have to do with Australia, the South China Sea and outer space?

How did Australia get to be involved in an Arctic treaty?

Before the treaty, the islands of Svalbard (known as Spitsbergen until 1925) were in legal limbo. No one nation was running the show. Life had centred on activities such as whaling, seal hunting and Arctic exploration, including an ill-fated attempt by Swedish engineer Salomon August Andree to fly a hydrogen balloon to the North Pole in 1897. By 1920, it was coal mining that was shaping settlement on Svalbard.

The Paris Peace Conference in Versailles was a timely opportunity to find a solution to what then US Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, called "a unique international problem".

With revolutionary Russia absent from the table, it was agreed that sovereignty of the "lawless" islands would go to neutral Norway and they would never be used for "warlike purposes" – and any party to the treaty could do business in Svalbard. Russia has since acceded to the treaty, which has 46 members.

Australia was on board right from the start simply because it was part of the dominion of Great Britain, its involvement a "historical quirk", says Professor Don Rothwell of the ANU’s College of Law, who points out that Antarctica is, rightly, the focus for Australia in polar affairs. "I don't think it really reflects any Australian interests in Spitsbergen at the time," he says "and, certainly to my knowledge, since then Australia has not really expressed great interest in Svalbard."

Why should we be interested in how Svalbard is run?

"Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Svalbard Treaty is that it creates the world’s most open migration zone, apart from possibly Antarctica," says Andrew Simon-Butler from the Melbourne Social Equity Institute at the University of Melbourne. "This completely visa-free regime, which Norway voluntarily extends beyond treaty parties to all people, is coupled with a thriving international community, particularly in the capital of Longyearbyen."

Svalbard has roughly 2600 residents. Two-thirds are Norwegian but the rest are from 49 other countries, including Australia and New Zealand, according to the office of Svalbard’s governor, the Sysselmann.

"People living in Svalbard tend to be highly motivated, educated, interested, curious and social," says Rupert Krapp, a research engineer with the Norwegian Polar Institute in Svalbard. "There is no native or indigenous population so every single one of us has made a conscious choice to come and stay. Those who do not thrive here tend to figure this out fairly quickly after arrival and depart again. Those who really like it tend to stay for as long as they can, typically for a few years or even up to 10 or more years."

Of course, there are caveats on the treaty’s "non-discrimination" approach. You must be able to show you can support yourself. Norway's Social Welfare Act does not apply. There is no financial assistance for special needs because of illness, disability or age. Criminality is a no-no. A Russian man who had just arrived in Longyearbyen was sentenced to 14 months in prison last year for committing Svalbard’s first bank robbery.

The extreme conditions are their own disincentive too. On February 9, the temperature is forecast to peak at minus 10 degrees in Longyearbyen. The sun won't come up. And there are dangers other than bears. In 2015, an avalanche descended on homes in Longyearbyen, killing a man and a little girl and forcing townsfolk to scrabble to unbury trapped families.

Russia has a longstanding interest in Svalbard and a presence there that includes a coal-mining settlement at Barentsburg. Another town, Pyramiden, with its bust of Lenin, ran from 1930 until 1998, when it was abandoned by Russian coal miners, and the leftovers of daily life – drinking glasses, bed linen, machinery – left untouched. Russia tested the open-access regime in 2015 with the unannounced visit of then deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin at Longyearbyen Airport while he was subject to travel sanctions following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. “In response, Norway added being subject to international travel sanctions as an additional ground for exclusion,” says Simon-Butler. In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry protested at the “unfriendly step”, saying it did “not meet the spirit of the international cooperation on Svalbard on the basis of the 1920 Svalbard Treaty”.

What might Svalbard have to do with the South China Sea?

The connection between Svalbard and the South China Sea is not, at first, obvious. But, for Professor Rothwell and other international law experts, the Svalbard Treaty offers a useful precedent for sorting out territorial disputes. “Svalbard has attracted more attention in the last 10 or 15 years because it’s been seen as a possible way of cutting through issues in the South China Sea,” says Professor Rothwell. Islands and reefs (and fishing rights that flow from the ownership of these) in the South China Sea are the subject of intense – sometimes violent – dispute among China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam as well as the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei.

"The way in which Svalbard has been managed is actually a good international example of how states were able to set aside conflicts and some differences to peacefully manage a set of very remote islands," says Professor Rothwell. It may have worked well "because Svalbard is quite isolated and the treaty was negotiated post-WWI, when there was obviously a lot of momentum behind trying to ensure that territorial disputes became neutralised" – but it still offers helpful concepts.

The arrangement on Svalbard is known as a "condominium" in international law. "It's designed to reflect shared ownership of territory. Svalbard is the largest territory that has been subject to a condominium arrangement. There’s nothing equivalent.

"Could you apply a Svalbard condominium-type solution in the South China Sea?" he asks. "It could be that Island X is Chinese but other states have an interest; Island Y is Filipino but other states have an interest; Island Z is Vietnamese but other states have an interest. Or you could say, ‘Islands X, Y and Z are Chinese but other states also have legitimate interests in those islands’."

Professor Rothwell concedes that this idea has never been actively advanced by any of the countries with interests in the South China Sea.

What might the treaty have to do with outer space?

The treaty offers a template for other remote and inhospitable communities too, says Andrew Simon-Butler. He has written extensively on the Svalbard Treaty’s potential application to outer space, a realm governed by laws from the 1960s and ’70s – modern by Svalbard Treaty standards but still being actively interpreted in legal circles to address issues in space today.

While outer space is considered "the province of all mankind", the jury is out on whether this means resources mined there are also the province of all nations. The United States passed a law in 2015 allowing its citizens property rights to resources mined from asteroids and authorising a US licensing program for mining in space.

As Simon-Butler sees it, a regime for outer space could recognise humankind’s overarching sovereignty but also provide the authority for individual space settlements and mining operations to be administered by a country in the way that Norway runs Svalbard. "Similar caveats to completely unrestricted access as exist on Svalbard could also apply, particularly, say, if migrating to a space station where air supply and accommodation will be limited."

He also contends there could be "a Svalbard-style freedom of movement in outer space possessed by each person as a human right that would guarantee that the economic potential of space is open to all".

Does this mean everyone is happy over Svalbard?

It's no secret that there is geopolitical jockeying underway in the Arctic, which may be ice-free by 2050. The melting ice means the opening of shipping routes, for both tourism and militaries, and potential access to mineral resources. In 2017, Russia opened a military base in its northernmost territory, the Franz Josef Land archipelago, north-east of Svalbard.

Norway (a NATO member), Russia (not) and other European nations with vested interests in the Arctic have co-existed vis-a-vis Svalbard, with fishing, including for snow crabs, among subjects of open disagreement from time to time. Norway has set up a fisheries protection zone in the 200 nautical miles around Svalbard but its right to do so under the treaty is contested.

Snow crabs are one thing. But rights to exploit oil and gas are increasing in relevance, says Professor Rothwell. On this, the treaty is silent.

"Because the treaty was concluded in 1920, it doesn’t adequately reflect the development of international law and, in particular, the law of the sea," he says. "Norway says, ‘Well, the treaty says we’re the sovereign so we’re entitled to enjoy these maritime zones'."

Oil and gas are not the only potential prizes at stake. In January, local media reported the discovery of minerals including copper, zinc, gold and silver estimated to be worth billions of dollars on the seabed near Svalbard.

Activities for "warlike purposes" are not allowed under the Svalbard Treaty, which expressly prohibits "naval bases" and "fortifications" on the archipelago. The language is not as comprehensive as in treaties on Antarctica and outer space, which must be used expressly for "peaceful purposes". Norway has one of its frigates visit Svalbard annually as a demonstration of its sovereignty, notes Simon-Butler, but it does not conduct drills there.

In such a strategically important part of the world, the potential for tensions remains.

What's next for Svalbard?

"For us biologists," says Rupert Krapp, "coming to Svalbard allows us to access the European high Arctic – tundra ecosystems, fjords, and the Arctic Ocean. Geologists, geophysicists, and other researchers come here to conduct fieldwork, measurements and sampling. Other parts of the Arctic are typically much less accessible, and often do not have the same technical infrastructure in place, and certainly not at the same standard and concentration as in the settlements of Svalbard."

China opened its first research station on Svalbard in 2003; India opened one in 2008, adding an underwater observatory in 2014. Italy, Poland, Britain and, of course, Norway are among other countries that also have stations in Svalbard.

There is much change to observe. The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the global average, says the Norwegian Polar Institute, with temperatures in the south-west of Svalbard projected to rise 2 degrees by 2050 – double that in the north-east. Even parts of the Global Seed Vault has had to be revamped after unseasonably heavy rain leaked through weakened permafrost and into its entrance tunnel.

Australian polar wilderness guide and former Longyearbyen resident John Rodsted has seen the changes firsthand over 18 years of visiting Svalbard. The permafrost is melting into a dirt slurry in places. “You can go into waist-deep mud,” he says. “The Arctic is absolutely falling apart in front of our eyes.”

Tourism is thriving. Some fly in, some come by ship. About 45,000 cruise ship passengers arrived in 2018 and another 17,000 travelled on expedition cruises, according to the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators. A polar bear was shot dead after it attacked a cruise ship guard who had gone onshore to secure the area for tourists in 2018. In January, a cruise operator was fined for breaching environment protection laws by dropping anchor close to a cliff of nesting birds.

Krapp expects to see a shift in the next 10 years from short stays by large cruise ships towards "a more exclusive and quality-focused regime where smaller cruise vessels bring tourists who stay longer and spend more locally". (He would also like to see more renewables and zero-emission technology for settlements and stations on Svalbard.)

As for the treaty itself, Simon-Butler believes it will become increasingly visible in the next century as more nations take an interest in the Arctic. China now describes itself as a "near-Arctic state", he points out. On top of this, he says, "as a treaty that any country can sign, it provides the sole location in the Arctic where all countries can legally establish a foothold to engage with the emerging Arctic economy".

Professor Rothwell says "as competition for Arctic resources intensifies not only amongst states like Norway and Russia, but new players like China, Svalbard will become an important Arctic test case as to how international legal frameworks can hold in the face of geostrategic rivalry".

On February 4, Moscow requested a meeting with Oslo to discuss "restrictions" not in keeping with the treaty, including "the illegality of the establishment of the so-called 'fish protection zone' by Norway" and "the artificial expansion of nature protection zones to limit economic activity in the archipelago".

"On Svalbard, Russia … does not intend to curtail its presence," said the Russian foreign ministry. "On the contrary, we have long-term plans for strengthening, diversifying and modernising it."

The Norwegian foreign ministry told Reuters the issues raised by Russia were "regularly raised" and "well-known".

"All activities on Svalbard are to take place within the framework of Norwegian laws and regulations.”

Meanwhile, in Longyearbyen the 100th anniversary of the treaty's signing was celebrated with activities including seminars on the topic, cake and a men’s choir performance. And for those who preferred to stay in, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation doubled down on its "slow TV" format with a minute by minute cruise around Svalbard's largest island, Spitsbergen. The voyage, which can be viewed on NRK's website, runs for 13,319 minutes. Viewers might even spot a polar bear.