Alan D. Hemmings

A square peg in a round hole: fitting impact assessment under the Antarctic Environmental Protocol to Antarctic tourism

The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty develops and codifies Antarctic environmental impact assessment (EIA) obligations. This paper outlines the history and present nature of Antarctic EIA obligations and reviews the emergence of Antarctic tourism. The Treaty explicitly recognises the primacy of Antarcticas scientific and environmental values, whereas tourism, while a legitimate activity, is not otherwise an embedded Antarctic activity. The difficulties of applying an EIA system which has evolved primarily to deal with national programme activities to the different activities of commercial tourism is not an argument for absolving tourist activities from these obligations. If tourism activities are not adequately addressed, the impacts may not be appropriately considered and could pose unacceptable risks to an environment supposedly legally safeguarded by international treaty.

From the New Geopolitics of Resources to Nanotechnology: Emerging Challenges of Globalism in Antarctica

AbstractThe Antarctic regime does not face imminent collapse, but its apparent calm disguises significant ecological and geopolitical instability. Over the past 15 years, the picture of human activity in Antarctica has transformed from one still heavily terrestrially focussed, dominated by national Antarctic programmes, largely science focussed, and situated within a Cold-War geopolitics, to one where diverse activities, increasingly including the marine environment, involving a much wider group of actors and commercial imperatives, is the norm. Globalism has brought new pressures, and increased intensity of pressures to Antarctica. Whilst the existing Antarctic Treaty System retains a theoretical capacity to develop standards and provide regulation, it has shown no obvious inclination to do so for a decade and a half. Critically, the system seems to have lost confidence in Antarctic exceptionalism as its organising principle, and to lack administrative capacity to address substantive issues. Given technology’s overcoming of the natural defences of Antarctica, if globalism now denies us the capacity to treat anywhere differently and thereby disables the principle of Antarctic exceptionalism upon which international governance of the region was predicated, Antarctica faces severe difficulties. This paper argues for continuing special treatment of Antarctica and a new deliberative exceptionalism. It suggests that significant unresolved issues within the present Antarctic dispensation need attention, notably the beginning of a debate on the abandonment of territorial sovereignty claims, a more coherent institutional development and the establishment of a political level Meeting of Parties in addition to the current officials-only meetings.

REALISING STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT IN ANTARCTICA

This paper discusses high-level environmental policy objectives under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), and their relation to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). It reviews the need for SEA in Antarctica; discusses existing ATS strategic processes and the impediments to achieving the high-level environmental policy objectives agreed within the ATS, and suggests ways to improve strategic consideration of environmental issues. Whilst the concept of a strategic approach is already accepted in principle within the ATS, there remain difficulties in realising this. These include, inter alia, limitations in the established processes addressing environmental issues (particularly cumulative impacts), and ongoing tensions between the nominally agreed international objectives and national interests (including issues around unresolved territorial sovereignty claims) in practice. The article contends that given growing pressures on the Antarctic environment, high-level environmental policy objectives cannot be achieved through accumulated reactive ad hoc measures, or by industry self-regulation, but requires a systematic approach to strategic environmental considerations.

The extended continental shelves of sub-Antarctic Islands: implications for Antarctic governance

This article considers the legal and policy issues surrounding the establishment of continental shelves beyond 200 nautical miles (nm) from sub-Antarctic islands. Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) a coastal state may establish a continental shelf that extends seawards beyond 200 nm where the continental shelf continues, normally to a total distance of no more than 350 nm. To establish such an extended continental shelf (ECS) a coastal state must file a submission of delineation data with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), a technical body established by UNCLOS. The rights of coastal states present particular difficulties in the Antarctic Treaty area (ATA), due to the general non-recognition of the seven territorial claims and the provisions of article IV of the Antarctic Treaty. Accordingly, Antarctic claimant states are generally adopting a restrained approach to the issue of ECS as appertaining to claimed territories in Antarctica in their submissions to the CLCS. These states appear to recognise that they cannot secure the normal prerogatives of a coastal state from territorial sea baselines within the ATA, at least for the duration of the present Antarctic Treaty system (ATS). A different approach is being taken with respect of sub-Antarctic islands lying north of the ATA. Sovereignty over sub-Antarctic territory north of the ATA is, with the exception of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, not contested. Accordingly, rights in relation to any continental shelf attaching to sub-Antarctic islands may be realised, apparently without challenging the Antarctic modus vivendi . However, the ECS of several sub-Antarctic islands penetrate the ATA. In 2008, the CLCS largely endorsed the 2004 Australian submission that included data on ECS from Australias sub-Antarctic islands of Macquarie Island and the Heard and McDonald group. The ECS from both groups penetrates south of 60°S into the ATA, in the case of Heard and McDonald covering a huge area. Although the wider dispute regarding sovereignty between the United Kingdom and Argentina adds complexity to the case, the South Sandwich Islands are sufficiently close to the ATA that their continental shelf also penetrates the area. In the event that the CLCS were ever able to make a recommendation on a submission of data relating to the South Sandwich Islands (something that could only occur with the consent of Argentina and the United Kingdom) the result would be a situation similar to that pertaining to the Australian sub-Antarctic islands. The consequence of these developments is that rights to seabed areas within the ATA have been assigned to individual states. On the face of it, this appears to be in conflict with the norm of collective responsibility that was established by the Antarctic Treaty 50 years ago precisely to constrain sovereignty issues in the region. What is suggested by this practice is a difference in the attitude of Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs) to rights generated from territory within the ATA and rights generated from external territory. Nonetheless, there may be significant implications flowing from the latter for resource issues within the ATA. Minerals exploitation on sub-Antarctic extended continental shelf within the ATA is precluded in the near-term because of cost, the formal prohibition under article 7 of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, and the fact that all sub-Antarctic coastal states are ATCPs. However the situation in regard to other resource activities is less clear. Bioprospecting could proceed subject to coastal state approval pursuant to the provisions of UNCLOS relating to marine scientific research, and there is no mandatory regulation under the ATS. The possibility that a coastal state may seek to realise rights on the ECS in relation to genetic resources may complicate collective ATS approaches and pose wider geopolitical challenges. In the longer term, the fact that some Antarctic states are presently seeking to secure rights that are essentially about ensuring their preclusive access to resources may have significant implications for strategic interests in the greater Antarctic region.

Nationalism in Today’s Antarctic

Whilst nationalism is a recognised force globally, its framing is predicated on experience in conventionally occupied parts of the world. The familiar image of angry young men waving Kalashnikovs means that the idea that nationalism might be at play in Antarctica has to overcome much instinctive resistance, as well as the tactical opposition of the keepers of the present Antarctic political arrangements. The limited consideration of nationalism in Antarctica has generally been confined to the past, particularly “Heroic-Era” and 1930s–1940s expeditions. This article addresses the formations of nationalism in the Antarctic present. Antarctic nationalism need not present in the same shape as nationalisms elsewhere to justify being called nationalism. Here it occurs in a virtual or mediated form, remote from the conventional metropolitan territories of the states and interests concerned. The key aspect of Antarctic nationalism is its contemporary form and intensity. We argue that given the historic difficulties of Antarctic activities, and the geopolitical constraints of the Cold War, it has only been since the end of that Cold War that a more muscular nationalism has been able to flourish in Antarctica. Our assessment is that there at least 11 bases upon which Antarctic nationalism might arise: (i) formally declared claims to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica; (ii) relative proximity of Antarctica to one’s metropolitan territory; (iii) historic and institutional associations with Antarctica; (iv) social and cultural associations; (v) regional or global hegemonic inclinations; (vi) alleged need in relation to resources; (vii) contested uses or practices in Antarctica; (viii) carry-over from intense antipathies outside Antarctica; (ix) national pride in, and mobilisation through, national Antarctic programmes; (x) infrastructure and logistics arrangements; or (xi) denial or constraint of access by one’s strategic competitors or opponents. In practice of course, these are likely to be manifested in combination. The risks inherent in Antarctic nationalism are the risks inherent in unrestrained nationalism anywhere, compounded by its already weak juridical situation. In Antarctica, the intersection of nationalism with resources poses a particular challenge to the regional order and its commitments to shareable public goods such as scientific research and environmental protection.

Nexus and imbroglio: CCAMLR, the Madrid Protocol and designating Antarctic Marine Protected Areas in the Southern Ocean

The paper examines the process and context of international efforts to designate Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean. The relationship between the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR Convention) and the Madrid Protocol is examined in relation to legal, political and administrative norms and practices. A contextual overview of the Antarctic MPA system is considered, followed by an analysis of the overlapping competencies of CAMLR Commission (CCAMLR) and the Madrid Protocol. The Antarctic MPA debate is placed in a wider international legal context of the management of global oceans space in areas beyond national jurisdiction. We provide an analysis of the politico-legal discourse and point to complicating factors within, and external to, the Antarctic system. The concluding section suggests options for breathing new life into the Southern Ocean MPA discourse.

Why did we get an International Space Station before an International Antarctic Station

Despite public projection of, and formal commitments in the Antarctic Treaty and subsequent instruments of the Antarctic Treaty System to, international scientific cooperation and the sharing of facilities, international stations are scarce. Of 110 current main facilities in the Antarctic Treaty area, only two are joint stations, and both involve only two states. International scientific cooperation in Antarctica is well developed, but this appears not to ordinarily involve joint facilities. This seems anomalous considering potential advantages in scientific cooperation, associated logistic effort and cost, and lowered environmental footprint. Moreover, notwithstanding the manifest strategic /national security interests entailed in space capabilities, some of the same states engaged in Antarctica have managed to collaborate on an International Space Station. The critical factor appears to be the unresolved situation around territorial sovereignty and consequential jurisdiction in Antarctica. So far as it relates to stations, scientific cooperation appears secondary to national autonomy in the selection of locations for other reasons.

Recent developments in relations between the United Kingdom and the Argentine Republic in the South Atlantic/Antarctic region

This article assesses the current state of UK-Argentine relations with reference to the South Atlantic and Antarctic region. Three major themes are pursued: the current state of UK-Argentine relations, with the contested Falklands/Malvinas looming large in the assessment, alongside fisheries management around South Georgia; the mapping of Argentine Antarctic territory in the context of extended continental shelf delimitation; and finally, the recent UK White Paper on Overseas Territories is noted insofar as it marks the most recent public assessment of how the coalition government is attempting to manage the most southerly portions of the British Overseas Territories portfolio. The article concludes with a warning that there is a danger that worsening UK-Argentine relations might begin to have more profound implications for the Antarctic Treaty System as resource, sovereignty and territorial issues acquire more piquancy.

Considerable values in Antarctica

This article examines the continuing effect within and upon the contemporary Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) of the foundational values of that system. The ATS arose in response to particular historical contingencies, which resulted in the containment without resolution of territorial sovereignty, the regional de-fanging of Cold War antipathies, and the centrality of scientific activity. In Antarctica today we are trying to find a way to accommodate a number of different interests, including: global justice and equity; resource and geopolitical interests of states able to operate there; territorial aspirations of the seven claimant and two ‘semi-claimant’ states; the need to protect the Antarctic environment; continuing interest in Antarctica as a global laboratory; commercial interests in marine harvesting, tourism, bioprospecting and (notwithstanding the present prohibition) mineral resource activities in the medium term. The values which have been granted considerability within the ATS continue to shape the Antarctic regime today, and the Antarctic future will depend upon the sorts of values that can gain a hearing within this system.

Australia's Antarctic agenda

Australia has had a long connection with, and significant national interests in, the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. The Australian Antarctic Territory comprises 42 per cent of Antarcticas landmass. Australia is not only a claimant state and original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty but has played a significant role in the development of what is termed the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). This article aims to provide an overview of Australias key policy interests and government policy goals towards Antarctica, including its commitment to the ATS. In examining key policy objectives we note that despite continuity and development of these objectives, significant changes and challenges have arisen in the period 1984–2006. It is these challenges that will help frame Australias Antarctic agenda over the next 20 years and beyond.