Our programme engages in legal, historical, socio-cultural and policy analyses of the Antarctic regime within the broader context of international law and foreign and domestic public policy. It aims to contribute to better understanding how the Antarctic regime operated in the past; what current challenges it faces, and how future governance might look.
A changing physical climate, along with the changing global political climate, poses potential changes in Antarctic governance. The Antarctic and much of the Southern Ocean are subject to the regime established by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which prioritises scientific research within the region and allows for other peaceful activities.
The Antarctic Treaty System provides the international governance regime for Antarctica. It comprises four separate international legal agreements, which are in force, and several institutions established for Antarctic governance. Furthermore, Antarctic regional governance operates within the wider context of international law and international institutions (such as the United Nations and International Maritime Organisation).
Governance plays a key role in creating an appropriate regulatory and policy framework for the management of impacts on the Antarctic environment and human activity there in general. Getting Antarctic governance right is a prerequisite to maintaining peace and international order across a large part of the planet, and in permitting and facilitating scientific research in Antarctica.
Justice and the Antarctic Treaty System
A modern discourse on the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) is founded on clearly defined values: peace, science, transparency (between the members) and environmental protection.
Justice is not a principle explicitly or even implicitly articulated in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty or any other instrument within the ATS. Yet much of the discourse around the ATS focuses on questions of justice or fairness in terms of Antarctic governance or access to resources. This project will explore the relationship between justice and the ATS and analyse the extent to which principles of justice and fairness underpin decision-making and policy creation within the ATS.
Two aspects of fairness will be explored in detail. First, justice in the context of Antarctic governance with an emphasis on process and fairness in decision-making. In particular, this project will analyse the extent to which broadening the membership of the ATS – to include Malaysia and most recently Pakistan – combined with a change in the internal power dynamics within the ATS, as demonstrated by the rise in power of China and India, affect the perceptions of justice within the ATS. Second, justice in the context of access to resources. The focus of the ATS on environmental protection has deliberately diverted attention away from Antarctic resources and the sovereignty compromise provided for in Article IV of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty has constrained any serious discussion on who should benefit from Antarctic resources.
While Article 7 of the 1991 Environmental Protocol has effectively suspended any meaningful discussion in relation to Antarctic mineral resources, questions relating to access and benefit sharing (to use the language of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol) are alive and well in the context of bioprospecting.
Although the first aspect of justice, relating to Antarctic governance, raises issues of intra-generational equity, the second raises issues of inter-generational equity and the interests of future generations. This project will conclude with a discussion of the relationship between legitimacy and justice. While legitimacy is an accepted and well-trodden discourse in relation to the ATS, it should be widened to embrace a more general notion of justice. Ultimately, the survival of the ATS as a regime is dependent on its perception as a legitimate regime and a just regime.
