Britain and The British Antarctic Territ

Britain and the British Antarctic Territory
in the wider geopolitics of
the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean

KLAUS DODDS AND ALAN D. HEMMINGS
The Antarctic,1 like the Arctic, is increasingly newsworthy in the age of global-
ization.2 To put it another way, the polar regions are immersed in global debates
about energy resources, maritime trade, military security and economic develop-
ment, alongside established preoccupations such as the role of science, the conser-
vation of historical and cultural artefacts, ongoing environmental change and, in
the Arctic, the challenges facing northern development and Arctic communities.3
News relating to both regions is frequently framed in ideas such as a ‘scramble for
resources’ or a ‘race for the Pole’, often prompted by ‘spectacular’ events, such
as the planting of a rust-resistant titanium lagpole bearing the Russian lag at
the bottom of the central Arctic Ocean, and/or a continuing unease felt by some
commentators towards both expressed and supposed interests of China, India and
other Asian states in the Arctic and Antarctic.4
The polar regions are, it seems, caught up in a process of global reordering
and the concomitant anxiety in the West about the emergence of new ‘poles of
power’ and inluence—and, critically, the consequences of these shifts for the
durability of the postwar Washington Consensus.5 At worst, there is a kind of
1
The Antarctic comprises the continent (the largest ice mass on earth) of some 6.5 million square miles and the
surrounding Southern Ocean south of the Southern Polar Front, the bio-geographical boundary between the
colder waters of the Southern Ocean and the southern extent of the warmer Atlantic, Indian and Paciic Oceans.
2
On the implications of globalization for Antarctica, see A. D. Hemmings, ‘Globalisation’s cold genius and the
ending of Antarctic isolation’, in L. K. Kriwoken, J. Jabour and A. D. Hemmings, eds, Looking south: Australia’s
Antarctic agenda (Sydney: Federation Press, 2007), pp. 176–90.
3
This article focuses on the geopolitical and strategic factors germane to understanding UK interests in the
Antarctic and does not touch upon critical scientiic and environmental debates such as the stability of the west
Antarctic ice sheet, the biodiversity of the Southern Ocean, ocean acidiication, climate change or the invasion
of alien species. All of these, however, have the capacity to present strategic challenges, for example how to
respond to a regulatory failure to prevent further marine ecosystem damage, isheries collapse, habitation
alteration and intensifying onshore resource exploitation.
4
K. Dodds and A. D. Hemmings, ‘Frontier vigilantism? Australia and contemporary representations of
Australian Antarctic Territory’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 55: 4, 2009, pp. 513–29. This article
generated a critical response from M. Haward and A. Bergin, ‘Vision not vigilantism: reply to Dodds and
Hemmings’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 56: 4, 2010, pp. 612–16, and a reply by K. Dodds and A. D.
Hemmings, ‘Stenographers of power: reply to Haward and Bergin’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 56:
4, 2010, pp. 617–19.
5 The Washington Consensus is usually understood to refer to a late Cold War and post-1989 commitment to
pursue neo-liberal governance and economic reform, especially in the global South. Earlier incarnations of the
concept, such as the ideas and principles established at Bretton Woods for a post-1945 political–economic order,
continue to have relevance to the polar regions, notably the Antarctic, because the United States helped to create
the 1959 treaty, which preserved its rights of access, and capacity to change the ensuing regime development.
International Afairs 89: 6 (2013) 1429–1444

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Klaus Dodds and Alan D. Hemmings
‘polar Orientalism’ at play in which anything China, India, South Korea, Russia
(and other states which the West might distrust such as Iran and Belarus) do in
relation to Antarctica, particularly if it involves mention of the word ‘resources’,
is cast as intrinsically worrying. Since it is never pointed out that these states’
likely interests, including resource interests, are interests shared by all the other major
states active in the Antarctic, this response risks conirming existing prejudice about
these ‘others’ and what they are ‘really’ up to.6 The interests that led to the
negotiation of the minerals convention in the 1980s were those of the ‘tradi-
tional’ western states of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS),7 and the major global
energy corporations that still track Antarctic hydrocarbon and hard-rock potenti-
alities are based in these countries. Much of the ishing activity, and virtually all
tourism and bioprospecting activity, are also in the hands of these western states.
China and others may very well be discussing Antarctic resource futures now,
but many other countries, including the UK and United States, have been doing
so since the 1960s and 1970s, charting policy strategies to ensure that Antarctic
resource options remain open in the long term.8 There is, therefore, a very
delicate balance to be struck between, on the one hand, pointing to the realities
of geopolitical transformation in Antarctica as elsewhere, and to the recasting of
the ATS regional architecture and its modus operandi that is necessary to relect
this, and, on the other hand, buying into a problematical discourse of ‘others’
with somehow diferent rights, interests or aspirations from those of an unexam-
ined ‘us’—which we take to be a group of predominantly Euro-American states.
A trend is emerging of growing tensions (as we explain below) in a region
previously regarded as managed peacefully by the provisions of the 1959 Antarctic
Treaty,9 along with associated legal instruments such as the 1991 Protocol on
6
With apologies to the late Edward Said, the phrase ‘polar Orientalism’ is used in an attempt to highlight
the way in which some commentators represent growing involvement by Asian states in the Antarctic, and
speciically in the Antarctic Treaty System, as unsettling. Japan, an original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty,
was for 24 years the only Asian state to sign. China and India both became consultative parties in 1983,
followed by the Republic of Korea in 1986, before another long hiatus in Asian engagement. Malaysia and
Pakistan acceded to the treaty in 2011 and 2012 respectively, and Iran has expressed an interest in establishing a
research station in the Antarctic. At a time of retrenchment in Antarctic funding in many states, China, India
and South Korea are investing more in their polar science programmes.
7
The decision to initiate the minerals negotiations (Recommendation XI-1) was taken in 1981 by the then 13
Antarctic Treaty consultative parties: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, West Germany, Japan,
New Zealand, Norway, Poland, the Soviet Union, UK and US (Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Afairs
and Worship, Report of the Eleventh Consultative Meeting [of the Antarctic Treaty], Buenos Aires, 1981). The
Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources Activity (CRAMRA) was adopted after
negotiations lasting from 1982 to 1988, although the issue of minerals governance had been discussed within
Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings from 1970 (C. Beeby, ‘The Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic
Mineral Resources Activities’, paper delivered at the International Bar Association Seminar, Auckland, New
Zealand, 13 Oct. 1988). Ironically, it was precisely these negotiations that brought China, India, the Republic
of Korea and others into the ATS in the irst place.
8
It would be foolish to deny that the resource potential of Antarctica was discussed explicitly even earlier, well
before the entry into force of the Antarctic Treaty in 1961. The Antarctic Treaty does not mention resources
per se because the issues were well known by negotiators to be deeply divise even in the 1950s. The resource
potential of Antarctica was one of the motivating factors behind Cook’s voyages back in the eighteenth
century, and Scott’s irst expedition (1901–4), among others, brought back samples of economic minerals like
coal and iron ore.
9
The Antarctic Treaty was adopted in Washington DC on 1 December 1959 and entered into force on 21 June
1961. The UK was one of the twelve original signatories, all of which were participants in the Antarctic
dimension of the 1957/8 International Geophysical Year.
1430
International Afairs 89: 6, 2013
Copyright © 2013 The Author(s). International Afairs © 2013 The Royal Institute of International Afairs.
Environmental Protection, including its prohibition under article 7 on mineral
resource activities other than scientiic research. The ATS, the main mechanism
of Antarctic governance, was for a while seen as a model for the rest of the world
of international collaboration, scientiic cooperation, peaceful coexistence and
continued demilitarization.10 In the mid-1960s, when obligations to avoid harmful
interference with wildlife and prevent the introduction of exotic species or diseases
were introduced, and a category of ‘Specially Protected Species’ and protected
areas was established, in the Fourth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting of 1966,
the system was in the vanguard of global multilateral conservation initiatives. The
UK was an inluential player in early Antarctic science and conservation policy,
exempliied by the fact that the category of ‘Sites of Special Scientiic Interest’ was
lifted straight out of UK domestic experience. Although there were tensions over
sensitive areas such as regulation of living resources, location of research stations,
environmental auditing and even place naming, the Consultative Parties of the
Antarctic Treaty did manage to defuse the divisive debate over possible mineral
exploitation in the 1980s.11 This saw irst the development of the critical property
rights-creating regime necessary to allow minerals activity in the contentious juris-
dictional circumstances of Antarctica, and then its abandonment in the face of
opposition from within the ATS, as well as from external critics on, variously,
environmental and equity grounds. But the abandonment of the minerals regime
has not removed interest in mineral resources on the part of either the older or
the more recent participants in the ATS. Buoyed up by the entry into force of the
protocol (originally signed in 1991) in 1998, a spirit of some optimism prevailed
that developments such as tourism could be managed through a combination of
the generic protocol obligations, industry regulation and national legislation.
This article not only assesses the current state of play in regional Antarctic
geopolitics, but also speculates, by way of conclusion, on likely key trends and
associated challenges facing the UK’s particular interests in the Antarctic and
South Atlantic region. One constant assumed in this analysis is that Argentina
will continue to challenge UK sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and South
Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI), as well as the British Antarctic
Territory (BAT) (and, in the Antarctic context, there is an additional counter-
claimant in the form of Chile).12 Krista Wiegand, noting 71 ongoing territorial
10
P. Berkman, M. Lang and D. Walton, eds, Science diplomacy: Antarctica, science and the governance of international
spaces (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2009).
11
The mineral resources in question extend across a range of hard-rock minerals and metals from iron to
palladium (P. D. Rowley, P.C. Williams and D. Pride, ‘Metallic and non-metallic mineral resources of
Antarctica’, in Robert J. Tingey, ed., The geology of Antarctica, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, pp. 617–51)
and hydrocarbons in the known sedimentary basins around the continent ( J. C. Behrendt, ‘Scientiic studies
relevant to the question of Antarctica’s petroleum resource potential’, in Tingey, ed., The geology of Antarctica,
pp. 588–616). Note the distinction between scientiic evidence and the demonstration of commercial viability.
The inluential 1976 Polar energy resources potential report from the US House of Representatives (interestingly
enough, reissued unchanged in 2005 by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress) notes
that ‘there are no known commercially economic energy resources in Antarctica’ (Washington DC: Library
of Congress, 1976), p. 25.
12
In this article we do not consider oil and gas development in Falkland Islands waters. This is clearly a highly
divisive issue for Argentina, and has clearly inlamed sensitivities over disputed territorial claims. Since the
late 1980s, exploitation of living resources of the Falkland Islands has also been controversial, with the ishing
1431
disputes worldwide, has characterized the Falklands/Malvinas dispute as one of
the ‘enduring disputes, having lasted more than 175 years’.13 There is no evidence
at present to suggest that the Argentine government under President Christina
Kirchner will do anything but continue to press its case in a variety of regional and
global forums.14 We do not assume, however, that Argentina will pose a military
threat, even if its armed forces are modernized in the next decade.15 What is far
more likely is that Argentina will seek to remain a disruptive inluence on the
Falkland Islands and their relationships with South American neighbours, specii-
cally Chile, Brazil and Uruguay.16
Wider Antarctic and Southern Ocean geopolitics

While no one is predicting the imminent collapse of the ATS, there is evidence of
tension within and beyond the system,17 and that has a bearing on any assessment
of the stability of the region and its place in the global system, the itness of current
institutional arrangements, and the UK’s role within and beyond institutions such
as the ATS and the International Whaling Commission. We, along with other
commentators,18 draw out the following examples of some divisive trends: the
submission of data in relation to extended continental shelves in the region;19 the
licence regime ensuring a form of economic prosperity unimaginable in the mid-1970s when wool remained
the dominant, if declining, export.
13
K. E. Wiegand, Enduring territorial disputes: strategies of bargaining, coercive diplomacy, and settlement (Athens, GA:
University of Georgia Press, 2011).
14
For further analysis of Kirchner’s Malvinas policy, see K. Dodds, ‘Stormy waters: Britain, the Falkland
Islands, and UK–Argentine relations’, International Afairs 88: 4, July 2012, pp. 683–700, and ‘Consolidate!
Britain, the Falkland Islands and the wider South Atlantic/Antarctic’, in Global Discourse online, 7 June 2013,
doi:10.1080/23269995.2013.804767.
15
We do assume, nevertheless, that future UK governments will deem it necessary to retain a deterrence posture.
The proposed scrapping of the ice patrol vessel HMS Endurance in the midst of the 1981 Defence Review will
continue to be cited as an example of giving the wrong kind of signal to Argentina.
16
It is worth recalling that there used to a be a regular shipping service between the Falkland Islands and
Uruguay. This service ended in the early 1970s when the UK and Argentina entered into a communications
agreement. In recent decades, attention has reasonably been focused on the air link between Chile and the
Falkland Islands via a scheduled Lan Chile light. There is an occasional air link with Argentina via Chile but
at present no direct air link between Argentina and the Falkland Islands. The Falkland Islands government
continues to explore the development of a possible air link with the United States via Brazil.
17
A.-M. Brady, ‘Diplomatic chill: politics trumps science in Antarctic Treaty System’, World Politics Review, 20
March 2013, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12802/diplomatic-chill-politics-trumps-science-
in-antarctic-treaty-system, accessed 10 Oct. 2013; A. D. Hemmings, ‘Rights, expectations and global equity:
re-justifying the Antarctic Treaty System for the 21st century’, in Richard C. Powell and Klaus Dodds, eds,
Polar geopolitics: knowledges, resources and legal regimes (Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar,
forthcoming 2014).
18
In a widely publicized paper in the journal Science, Steven Chown and colleagues carried out a horizon-
scanning exercise and usefully identiied a series of challenges facing the Antarctic over the next decade
and then over a period of 50 years (2010–60). The team of 26 authors identiied in the irst phase (2010–20)
issues including marine resource use, ocean acidiication, invasion by alien species, pollution and regulatory
failure on the part of the ATS. In the next phase (2010–60) they considered the impacts of climate change,
geo-engineering, hydrocarbon exploitation, biological prospecting, permanent human settlement and the
collapse of the ATS. The article generated one formal response in the same journal challenging those sombre
assessments, and Chown and colleagues published their own counter-response: S. Chown et al., ‘Challenges to
the future conservation of the Antarctic’, Science 337, 12 July 2012, pp. 158–9 (original article); Marcus Haward,
Julia Jabour and A. J. Press, ‘Antarctic Treaty System ready for a challenge’, Science 338, 2012, p. 603 (response);
S. L. Chown, ‘Antarctic Treaty System past not predictive’, Science 339, 2013, p. 141 (Chown’s reply).
19
The seven Antarctic territorial claimants (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, UK)
see themselves as coastal states in the context of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
1432
worrying perception in at least some intelligence circles that the South Atlantic has
emerged as one of the identiiable regions (alongside the South China Sea, Indian
Ocean and Arctic Ocean) of resource stress, with ‘the potential for disputes to grow
over seabed rights’ there;20 continued tension between Australia and Japan over
whaling in Antarctic waters;21 apparent diiculties around proposals for desig-
nating marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean, with China, Russia
and Ukraine depicted by western countries, environmental NGOs and media as
being hostile to marine conservation;22 and the inevitable complications of a diver-
sifying, albeit still quite restricted (when it comes to Consultative Party status as
opposed to merely acceding), ATS membership. And all of this must necessarily
be seen as occurring in the context of the greatest transformation of all, the efects
of human-induced climate change. While the Arctic attracts more insistent media
coverage, and may very well be exhibiting faster and (in part because of proximity
to large populations and historic human habitation) more immediately obvious
climate change efects, Antarctica too is massively afected.23
The Antarctic past was never entirely free of contention, but once the poten-
tially explosive issues of territorial rivalry were contained by the Antarctic Treaty,
(UNCLOS). This is plainly problematic, since only ive of the claimants cross-recognize claims, the US and
Russia have long rejected all other claims while reserving the right to press a territorial claim themselves, and
no other state (within or outside the ATS) recognizes anybody’s claim. The Antarctic Treaty contains the
problem through its all-things-to-all-persons article IV, which, as the cliché goes, ‘freezes’ positions for the
duration of the treaty. So claimants feeling that if they do not submit data to the Commission on the Limits
of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) they will diminish their own standing as claimants have faced a quandary.
They have resolved it in diferent ways. Chile has submitted only preliminary data, thus avoiding CLCS
review while leaving future options open. France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, while making
a submission to the CLCS, did not include Antarctic data (but said they might in the future). However,
in May 2009 the UK did submit materials to the CLCS in relation to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia
and South Sandwich Islands (for details, see http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_iles/
gbr45_09/gbr2009fgs_executive%20summary.pdf, accessed 10 Oct. 2013). Australia and Norway each
submitted Antarctic data but asked the CLCS not to consider it. Only Argentina submitted Antarctic data
without explicit qualiication. As the Buenos Aires government presumably anticipated, the CLCS rules of
procedure prevent consideration of submissions in relation to disputed areas; several states drew attention
to this provision and directly requested the CLCS not to consider the submission (for details, see Alan D.
Hemmings and Tim Stephens, ‘The extended continental shelves of sub-Antarctic islands: implications for
Antarctic governance’, Polar Record 46: 4, 2010, pp. 312–27.
20
National Intelligence Council, Global trends 2030: alternative worlds, NIC 2012–001 (Washington DC, Dec. 2012),
p. 63, http://www.dni.gov/iles/documents/GlobalTrends_2030.pdf, accessed 14 Oct. 2013.
21
Notwithstanding the formal ending of commercial whaling, and the establishment of a Southern Ocean
Whale Sanctuary, Japan has continued to take whales there each year through special permits ‘for the purposes
of scientiic research’ under article VIII of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
Having failed to halt this activity through diplomatic means, in 2010 Australia instituted proceedings in the
International Court of Justice.
22
The capacity to designate Antarctic MPAs arises under both the Madrid Protocol and CCAMLR, although,
as elsewhere, the extension of protected areas to the marine environment is much more recent than their
application on the continent itself. The irst large MPA (the only one so far designated by CCAMLR), the
South Orkney Islands Southern Shelf MPA, almost 94,000 km2 in area, was designated in 2009. Following
agreement on a General Framework for the Establishment of CCAMLR Marine Protected Areas in 2011,
several other large MPAs have been proposed, most notably one in the Ross Sea and another of East
Antarctica. However, in the face of opposition from particular ishing states (allegedly most trenchantly, as
of mid-2013, from Russia and Ukraine) it has proved impossible to designate these, since CCAMLR, like the
rest of the ATS, requires consensus for decision-making. See Karl Mathiesen, ‘Russia blocks Antarctic marine
sanctuary plan’, Guardian, 16 July 2013, http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/16/antarctica-marine-
reserve-plan?CMP=twt_gu, accessed 10 Oct. 2013.
23
John Turner and 25 other authors, ‘Antarctic climate change and the environment: an update’, Polar Record,
available on Cambridge Journals Online 2013, doi:10.1017/S0032247413000296.
1433
the low levels and circumscribed nature of human activity there presented no
very great challenges. The primary activity, scientiic research, was in general
terms shareable, and the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957/8 ofered
some measured reassurance in that area.24 Later, when the irst serious resource
issues arose (a potential resumption of sealing, then ishing, and then the question
of minerals), these could be regulated through regionally negotiated and topic-
speciic conventions under the ATS. In practice, neither sealing nor mining has so
far taken place, and the conventions established to regulate them have remained in
limbo (sealing) or been abandoned without coming into force (mining), although
ishing has been regulated under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic
Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). No one, for example, gave much thought
to how the Law of the Sea negotiations (1973–82) might alter this sense of a region
with its own separate governance arrangements. There was still a distinct sense
that Antarctica was a ‘pole apart’, and that view was deliberately cultivated to
ensure the continued hegemony of the ATS.
The diiculty now is that far more things are possible, more states and other
entities wish to (and can) do them, and the Cold War glue that formerly gave
the smaller number of interested states common cause (notwithstanding their
allegiance to opposing blocs) has been dissolved in the post-Cold War, more
commercially competitive and globalized circumstances. Furthermore, in what is,
after all, an indicator of success, the instruments in force in the Antarctic are now
quite old. The diiculties this may pose can be illustrated by recent experience in
relation to two instruments and marine protection in the Southern Ocean. Both
Japan, before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in relation to whaling, and
Ukraine, in the context of the CCAMLR in relation to MPAs and ishing, have
essentially argued that one cannot reframe the purposes of conventions intended
to allow and manage resource exploitation in order to prohibit that activity in
discrete areas. Ukraine has argued that:
From an organisation that should be developing methods for ensuring the rational use of
marine living resources, CCAMLR has gradually turned into an organisation focused just
on their conservation. As we see it, if things continue in this way, the existing Convention
will lose all reasonable meaning. It will then become necessary to talk about the termi-
nation of the Convention and the creation of a new one, or of a revision of the Madrid
Protocol with the introduction into its terms of reference of marine areas in addition to
terrestrial areas.25
And at the ICJ, Japan has argued that:

It is clear from the text of the Preamble, to which Australia refers, that the Convention was
concluded to conserve whale stocks and thereby make possible the orderly development
of the whaling industry. The concept of conservation, within the context of the Convention, is not
an end in itself: it is rather a means to sustain future use … In this regard, the ICRW [International
24
We say ‘measured’ because there was tension over research station location during the IGY and suspicion
about what ‘kind’ of research might have been undertaken. For example, Australian commentators worried
that Soviet IGY stations were a ‘front’ for secret Cold War military activity.
25
CCAMLR Secretariat, Report of the 31st meeting of the Commission (Hobart, Australia, 2012), para. 7.97.
1434
Convention for the Regulation of Whaling] has a fundamentally diferent object and purpose compared
to multilateral treaties concluded for the purpose of preserving endangered species, such as polar bears,
from exploitation.26
Whether or not such sentiments end up cutting any ice (and the pun is not a
lazy one, because the status of ice, too, has been at the forefront of contempo-
rary climate change anxieties27) in their respective forums, it seems to us that the
appearance of such arguments itself represents the opening of a new phase in
Antarctic afairs. It points to more explicit dispute about the normative frame-
work within which Antarctic governance occurs (and seemingly a decline in—or
at least challenge to—the dominant western and particularly Anglophone framing
that has driven Antarctic regional governance hitherto and the championing of
a consensus that was shaped by the interests and values of those Anglo/western
states). For it is, if it succeeds, a challenge to the idea that Antarctic governance
(and the instruments through which that governance is achieved) can evolve in
line with the accretion model of the ATS. If one cannot in fact reframe the very
limited suite of existing regional instruments (within and beyond the ATS) to
meet perceived new circumstances (although plainly some parties may be denying
that there are such new circumstances) then presumably the only way to move
forward is to abolish middle-aged instruments and build new ones de novo. That
would of course present its own challenges, with the outcome unclear. But such a
periodic substantive reworking of the politico-legal system would lead into a very
diferent sort of Antarctic geopolitics.
Right up to the adoption of the last component of the ATS, the Madrid
Protocol in 1991, a sort of cordon sanitaire surrounded the Antarctic. Beyond the
northern boundary of CCAMLR (variously between 45º and 60º South) there
was still something of a gap before structured activities (and certainly regional
instruments) were again encountered. This is no longer the case, with two
new regional isheries management organizations (RFMOs) and the informal
‘Galapagos Agreement’ abutting the CCAMLR boundary (see igure 1). With the
CCAMLR boundary across the Paciic sector drawn at 60ºS (coincident with the
Antarctic Treaty boundary), the ecosystems immediately to the north of this line,
which are still close to Antarctic in nature, fall under the aegis of the Convention
on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the
South Paciic Ocean, an instrument outside the ATS. Alongside the operation of
taxa-speciic non-ATS instruments such as the International Convention for the
Regulation of Whaling and the Convention on the Conservation of Southern
Bluein Tuna, both of which regulate activities in the Southern Ocean, the reality
of human activities in the Antarctic has exceeded the bounds of the historic
regional arrangement.
26
International Court of Justice, Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan), Counter-memorial of Japan, 9
March 2012 (emphasis added).
27
On these cultural anxieties, see E. Glasberg, Antarctica as cultural critique (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2012).
1435
Figure 1: The Antarctic Treaty System and neighbouring regional isheries

management organizations
The UK and the British Antarctic Territory

The BAT is one of 14 overseas territories of the UK.28 The UK is a claimant state
and has been since 1908. This means that the UK considers itself ‘rooted’ in the
Antarctic. The British Antarctic Territory Strategy paper 2011–2013 opens with a
description of the BAT and notes that: ‘The UK’s claim to this part of Antarc-
tica is the oldest made on the continent.’29 The reference to ‘oldest’ is not politi-
cally innocent: successive British governments have sought not only to establish
and promote a historical record of the UK presence (in areas including heritage,
scientiic activity, public education) but also to use this longevity of involvement
to distinguish itself from the more ‘recent’ counter-claimants such as Argentina
28
Ian Hendry and Susan Dickson, British Overseas Territories law (Oxford: Hart, 2011).
29
Foreign and Commonwealth Oice, British Antarctic Territory Strategy Paper 2011–2013 (London: FCO, 2013).
1436
and Chile.30 After making the claim to be the ‘oldest’ claimant, the strategy
paper immediately ofers a caveat: ‘All territorial sovereignty claims to Antarctica
are held in abeyance under Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty 1959.’ Nonethe-
less, someone took the decision to include the previous sentence, highlighting a
common trait among states interested in the Antarctic to emphasize being either
‘irst’ and/or ‘earliest’.
The UK’s engagement with the Antarctic involves a great deal of labour in
discovery, exploration, administration and scientiic activity over the past two
hundred years and enjoys a joint British and Commonwealth provenance.31 In
alliance with Australia and New Zealand, and more sporadically South Africa,
the UK established a substantial territorial, resource and strategic presence in the
region. By the early 1930s, the British empire had made a heavy imprint on the
Antarctic map in the form of three substantial territorial claims and associated
place naming. The Australian Antarctic Territory, the Falkland Islands Dependen-
cies (FID) and the Ross Dependency encapsulated some two-thirds of the polar
continent. Between the world wars, the United States was seen as the primary
‘problem’ for British imperial claims. In the 1940s Argentina and Chile challenged
the British claims to the FID, and thereafter all three countries were embroiled in a
series of struggles for supremacy of their respective sovereignty claims. The 1940s
and 1950s, moreover, witnessed the growing presence of the United States and
the Soviet Union in the form of scientiic investigation, material infrastructure
and exploratory–military activity. Both superpowers rejected all existing territo-
rial claims to the Antarctic and reserved the right to press their own claims in the
future. In the midst of the IGY, negotiations began with twelve Antarctic IGY
parties, including the UK, over a possible new treaty regime for the Antarctic in
the light of ongoing sovereignty disputes.
What emerged from those negotiations was a decision to host a conference in
Washington in October 1959, which led some six weeks later to the signing of
an Antarctic Treaty. Twelve countries were invited to this conference, relecting
participation in the IGY’s Antarctic programme. At the heart of the Antarctic
Treaty, which entered into force in June 1961, were three core principles: the
region should be a zone of peace; international scientiic collaboration was to
be encouraged; and the existing sovereignty disputes should be put on hold in
favour of general cooperation and conidence building through the free exchange
of information and a right to inspect each other’s scientiic stations. The resource
potential of the Antarctic was not discussed in the treaty, and this omission unques-
tionably helped to secure overall consensus, given the disputes over ownership of
territory and resources. Scientiic diplomacy loomed large, and it was hoped that
signatories (and those who joined later) would embrace the spirit and purpose of
the treaty, with its underlying commitment to peaceful coexistence.
30
This reading of Antarctic claimant history and geography has been challenged by S. Scott, ‘Ingenious or
innocuous? Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty as imperialism’, Polar Journal 1: 1, 2011, pp. 51–62.
31
This includes the multiple British and British empire expeditions of the ‘heroic era’ led by the iconic igures
of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Douglas Mawson. See e.g. E. Larson, An empire of ice: Scott,
Shackleton and the heroic age of Antarctic science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012).
1437
The entry into force of the Antarctic Treaty had implications for the UK’s
administration of its most southerly colonial territories. The FID were, in efect,
broken up, and the territories below the Antarctic Treaty’s zone of application
(south of 60ºS) were separated from the SGSSI. Created in March 1962 in the
aftermath of the dissolution of the FID,32 the BAT remains by far the UK’s largest
overseas territory in terms of geographical area (over 660,000 square miles). It
comprises the region south of 60ºS, encompassing the territory between longi-
tudes 20ºW and 80ºW. Administratively, the high commissioner of the BAT is
a senior oicial in the Foreign and Commonwealth Oice.33 The current high
commissioner is Dr Peter Hayes, who previously served as principal private secre-
tary to several UK foreign secretaries, and as consul general in Washington.34 In
April 1967 the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), which conducted
British Science in Antarctica but was funded by the Colonial Oice, became the
British Antarctic Survey (BAS), with responsibility for its funding and administra-
tion transferred to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in April
1967. Although the focus of British attention is on the BAT, it is worth noting that
UK government ministers, such as the current Science Minister David Willetts,
increasingly recognize the distinctly regional dimension of British involvement in
the Antarctic.35 In the aftermath of his visit to the Antarctic Peninsula in February
2012, and speciically to the BAS base at Rothera, Willetts highlighted what he
called the ‘strategic presence’ in the context of parliamentary and media debate
concerning the future of the BAS. Thus any reasonable assessment of the BAT
would have to acknowledge that there are a multiplicity of interests and respon-
sibilities, which overlap with one another.
For the UK, sovereignty over all three territories is non-negotiable, subject
only to the constraints it has accepted in relation to the BAT under the Antarctic
Treaty. Plainly, most other states in the world do not recognize UK territorial
sovereignty over the BAT, and some others may not (clearly Argentina does not)
recognize its territorial sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and SGSSI. Succes-
sive UK governments have committed themselves to uphold the right of the
Falkland Island community to self-determination in respect of their own future
(a point reiterated by the outcome of the March 2013 Falkland Islands referendum,
which overwhelmingly supported the political status quo) and undertaken to
ensure that South Georgia enjoys a permanent British presence, now scientiically
32
The FID were established in 1908 via letters patent. Revised in 1917, the FID encompassed a vast geographical
area of the Antarctic Peninsula region, the SGSSI and surrounding waters. Responsibility for administering
the FID fell to the governor of the Falkland Islands. The FID were strategically important in the irst years
of the twentieth century, when Britain played a key role in regulating the whaling industry operating in
South Georgia and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Commercial whaling ended in the early 1960s
but ‘scientiic whaling’ still continues in another area of the Southern Ocean, closer to Australian Antarctic
Territory.
33
Hendry and Dickson, British Overseas Territories law, p. 300.
34
Peter Hayes, https://www.gov.uk/government/people/peter-hayes, accessed 10 Oct. 2013.
35
The UK government views the territorial disputes with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, SGSSI and BAT
as legally distinct but interlinked. The Falkland Islands is conceived as a strategic gateway to the other South
Atlantic and Antarctic overseas territories.
1438
(and in a conservation/living resource management capacity as well36) but in the
past militarily.37
The UK and Antarctica: multiple roles and contexts

The United Kingdom has multiple roles in the Antarctic—as a claimant state, as
a regional power, as a scientiic–environmental actor, and as an original signatory
of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.38 These roles are manifested in four dimensions.
First, the UK’s role in the ATS is clearly pivotal in ensuring that its interests are
represented with due regard to the founding principles of the Antarctic Treaty,
including the provisions relating to territorial competition. Second, the UK exerts
considerable inluence through the work of the BAS and indeed UK-funded polar
science more generally.39 At issue here are not only the general beneits of scien-
tiic knowledge production and circulation, but also the speciic advantages that
accrue from having an active scientiic programme operating in the BAT. Third,
there is a regional dimension, and attention is given to the role of the Royal Navy
and the duties of HMS Protector which highlight clearly the connections that exist
say between the UK and Chile. Finally, the UK remains, as a claimant state (and
thus in its own estimation as a coastal state), actively engaged in marine steward-
ship activities within the Antarctic region and beyond, especially around SGSSI.40
All four dimensions contribute, explicitly and implicitly, to the maintenance of
the UK’s sovereign presence in the BAT and SGSSI.41 In the remainder of this
section we touch upon each of the four briely.
36
The current commissioner of SGSSI is the Falkland Islands governor, Nigel Haywood. The government of
SGSSI undertakes the allocation of ishing licences for species such as Patagonian toothish. A 200 nautical
mile maritime zone was declared around South Georgia to enable living resource management and in
February 2012 the government of SGSSI created a marine protected area encompassing around 600,000 square
miles of ocean. There are also two British Antarctic Survey bases on South Georgia, King Edward Point and
Bird Island. The South Georgia Heritage Trust maintains the South Georgia Museum. The British military
presence ended in 2001.
37
There was a British military presence (Royal Marines) between 1982 and 2001. In 1982 South Georgia was a
military theatre and was caught up in the wider conlict between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland
Islands. See R. Perkins, Operation Paraquat: the battle for South Georgia (Beckington: Picton, 1986).
38
There is another aspect to the UK’s role in the Antarctic related to its status as an EU member state. The EU
is a full member of the CCAMLR, and while accession to the Antarctic Treaty and Madrid Protocol (unlike
CCAMLR) is currently open only for states, it became apparent during the negotiation of the annexe to the
protocol (on ‘Liability arising from environmental emergencies’) that for EU member states legal competence
may rest in the European Commission rather than with individual states, even in Antarctica. The EU may well
become more formally involved with the ATS. It is already a major funder of polar science, and its inluence
in the polar regions is likely to increase in the next decade.
39
Although the focus is on the BAS as the premier polar operator in the BAT, it is important to acknowledge
that British polar science is funded nationally and internationally. It is collaborative in nature and is not
restricted to the BAT. The main domestic funder of UK polar science is the NERC.
40
Under stewardship we would include search and rescue (SAR), although obviously this activity reinforces
the UK’s interests as a territorial claimant. HMS Protector, the Royal Navy’s ice-patrol vessel, is considered
to be a ‘irst responder’ in the event of an SAR operation in Antarctic waters. HMS Protector also operates
as an inspecting vessel for the CCAMLR, an important role given the prevalence of illegal, unregulated and
unreported ishing in the Southern Ocean.
41
K. Dodds, ‘The Falklands as a strategic gateway’, RUSI Journal 157: 6, 2012, pp. 18–25.
1439
The UK and the ATS

The UK was one of the original signatories to the Antarctic Treaty and is a consul-
tative party, which means that it enjoys voting rights in the annual Antarctic
Treaty consultative meetings.42 There are 28 consultative parties (CPs), and 50
countries (acceding parties) in all have signed the Antarctic Treaty. To become
a consultative party a state must ‘conduct substantial research activity’, and over
the decades a steady increase in the number of CPs has taken place, with Brazil,
China and India joining their number in the 1980s. Non-consultative parties are
invited to attend the Atlantic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCMs), as are three
‘observers’ (the Scientiic Committee on Antarctic Research, the CCAMLR and
the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs) and accredited ‘expert’
organizations, such as the NGOs the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition and
the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators and numerous inter-
national organizations, including the UN Environment Programme, the World
Meteorological Organization and the International Hydrographic Organization.
Two former BAS scientists, John Dudeney and David Walton, recently evalu-
ated Antarctic science and its relationship to the business of the ATS between
1992 and 2010. Their analysis concluded that the UK, New Zealand and Australia
were the strongest performers in terms of working papers submitted to the ATS,
and they argued that ‘the “Imperial Three” of UK, Australia, and New Zealand
are clearly dominant, echoing an earlier historical context’.43 They also note that
some of the least productive CPs include China, Ukraine, Brazil and European
states such as Finland and Spain. Under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, a CP
is deined by a demonstration of ‘substantial scientiic activity’, but there is no
mechanism for deciding one way or another about the long-term record of CPs
on this criterion. When linked to the production of peer-reviewed scientiic publi-
cations, they ind there is a strong relationship between national scientiic output
and national ATS working paper production. As they conclude: ‘Generally, the
more engaged a CP is in the diplomacy the greater will be its output of science—
which is reassuring . . . We conclude that at present the Treaty remains efectively a
select club dominated by the claimant states and the Cold War warriors (USA and
Russia), and the return on investment in Antarctic activities … seems lacking for
several countries.’ Whatever comfort the UK may draw from this analysis, Argen-
tina and Chile are part of that leading group regarding working paper produc-
tivity and scientiic productivity.
42
The ATCM operates by a consensus principle and, where it is possible to reach agreement, adopts measures,
decisions and resolutions. Measures are legally binding on ATCPs once all those parties have approved them
domestically. A secretariat based in Buenos Aires provides support to the ATCM, which is hosted annually
in a diferent location. In May 2013, the meeting was hosted by the Belgian government in Brussels. The 2014
ATCM will be in Brasilia. The UK last hosted the ATCM in 2006, in Edinburgh.
43
J. Dudeney and D. Walton, ‘Leadership in politics and science within the Antarctic Treaty’, Polar Research 31,
2012, pp. 1–10.
1440
The BAS and British polar science

The UK’s physical presence in the Antarctic region takes the form of a network
of BAS research stations—four permanent (King Edward Point and Bird Island
on South Georgia, Halley and Rothera in the BAT44) and three summer research
stations (Signy in the South Orkney Islands, Fossil Bluf, and Sky Blu on the
Peninsula).45 The oldest year-round station is the Halley base complex, irst
created in 1956, as part of the Royal Society’s involvement in the IGY in 1957/8. Its
latest incarnation, Halley VI, was formally inaugurated in March 2013. The UK’s
‘Antarctic facilities’ are small in number when compared to those of Argentina,
which has six permanent (year-round) research stations and eight other seasonal
facilities (some of which may be rarely used) scattered around the Argentine
Antarctic Territory. In the post-merger debate period when there was discussion
about the BAS being amalgamated with the National Oceanography Centre (2012–
13), the BAS has been encouraged to be ever more innovative (a new Cambridge
Centre for Innovation on Environment has been established within it) and open to
further possibilities for income generation and research consultancy as part of its
continuation as an independent scientiic and technical organization. New invest-
ment in the form of a new base (Halley VI) has come with a presumption that
the BAS might well play an advisory role to UK businesses working in ‘frontier
environments’, such as the Arctic region, building on the organization’s long
operational experience on Svalbard. This reference to ‘frontier environments’ was
included in a NERC consultation document and attracted criticism from environ-
mental organizations, which feared that the BAS would be used to help British
mining/oil and gas companies operate more safely and eiciently in the Arctic.
The UK and the regional dimension

The UK is a regional power in the Antarctic and South Atlantic. The Falkland
Islands are regarded as a strategic gateway to the BAT and SGSSI, although there
is evidence that the Chilean port city of Punta Arenas is growing in signiicance.46
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is the key government agency and works closely
with other relevant departments and agencies. Supporting the operational activi-
ties of the BAS and other UK agencies in the Antarctic and SGSSI is the Royal
Navy’s ice patrol vessel HMS Protector. A class A1 icebreaker, like HMS Endurance,
this vessel is a crucial element in the UK’s projection of inluence in the BAT.47
44
The Rothera airstrip facility is an important hub for trans-Antarctic transport. It is common for the BAS to
accommodate foreign air crews in transit.
45
There are also other heritage sites, including the former FIDS base hut, Port Lockroy. Another research
station was sold to Ukraine.
46
The BAS is increasingly using Punta Arenas in Chile as a cheaper and more eicient gateway for its purposes.
We are grateful to Dr David Walton for this insight.
47
HMS Protector does not carry helicopters but does have landing facilities for them, though there is no hangar
on board. There is an ongoing debate within the polar and naval community about whether such a helicopter
capacity would be useful in terms of extending radius of operations and increasing theatre contingent
capability. Two helicopters would have to be carried to ensure that there was always the possibility of one
helicopter being used to support the other in the event of an accident.
1441
Capable of breaking through both sea and glacial ice, Protector has a range of some
14,000 nautical miles without bunkering and operates between November and
March, during the Antarctic summer season. The vessel carries out two funda-
mental tasks: undertaking hydrographic surveying, and afording logistical and
operational support to the BAS, including the transport of additional aviation fuel
to the BAS base at Rothera.48 Looking ahead, HMS Protector could play a wider role
in the Antarctic Peninsula/South Shetland region by ofering logistical support
for other operating nations (e.g. Spain and Uruguay), and has already proved
its capability to provide essential support in emergency situations by helping to
deal with a ire afecting the Brazilian research station on King George Island in
February 2012.49 Unlike other Royal Navy vessels, HMS Protector remains largely
unafected by the bans on Royal Navy port visits in South American countries
which, applied as a regional gesture of solidarity with Argentina, have prevented
Royal Navy ships from entering South American ports such as Montevideo.50
UK as claimant state and coastal state

The UK is the foundational territorial claimant in Antarctica. The territorial
claims of Australia (Australian Antarctic Territory) and New Zealand (Ross
Dependency), like the FID/BAT, emerge from interwar British imperial policy,
and the French (Terre Adélie) and Norwegian (Dronning Maud Land) claims
were essentially conigured in relation to, and with the support of, that imperial
project—and in the last case, also in order to head of Nazi Germany’s territo-
rial aspirations.51 The Argentine (Antártida Argentina) and Chilean (Territorio
Antártico Chileno) claims only emerged formally in the 1940s, and were made in
repudiation of the UK’s claims in the Antarctic Peninsula (and of course of each
other’s, since all three overlapped), notwithstanding the fact that the two South
American states draw on the nineteenth-century post-colonial pan-American
doctrine of uti possidetis (whereby independent South American states argue the
continuing legitimacy of the boundaries and assertions of territorial extent made
during the Spanish and Portuguese imperial periods) to justify their claims.52
Yet since the adoption of the Antarctic Treaty, the UK has been one of the less
48
Klaus Dodds is indebted to Captain Peter Sparkes for providing an explanation of HMS Protector’s capabilities
(pers. comm., 5 Feb. 2013). Our analysis is independent of that detailed assessment provided by Captain
Sparkes.
49
There is a wider point at stake here regarding icebreaker capacity in the Antarctic Peninsula region. Argentina
and Chile have ageing ships, and Argentina’s Almirante Irizar was badly damaged by ire in 2007. Maritime
rescue in this region is shared between Argentina and Chile, but concerns have been expressed about the
efectiveness of this collaboration, given regional rivalry.
50
A reminder, perhaps, that this ice-patrol vessel does not only serve a purpose in Antarctic waters but also helps
in wider regional relations, cementing relations between UK and other South American militaries beyond
Argentina.
51
On Antarctic territorial claims generally, see A. D. Hemmings, ‘Security beyond claims’, in A. D. Hemmings,
D. R. Rothwell and K. N. Scott, eds, Antarctic security in the twenty-irst century: legal and policy perspectives
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), pp. 70–94.
52
In relation to wider application of the doctrine within South America, see G. Ireland, Boundaries, possessions,
and conlicts in South America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938). On the doctrine as applied in
Antarctica, see S. V. Scott, The political interpretation of multilateral treaties (Leiden: Nijhof, 2004), pp. 51–72.
1442
assertive claimants, certainly very much less so than Argentina and Australia.53
In part this may relect a sober analysis of the particular complications obtaining
in the Antarctic Peninsula, with the three contending claims, and from the 1960s
onwards the large number of stations and activity conducted by other states in the
contested Antarctic Peninsula region, including the two superpowers. Whatever
the explanation, the UK has taken a novel line, as claimant state, in being prepared
to transfer stations it no longer wished (or could no longer aford) to run to other
Antarctic states, including competing claimant Chile and newer actors such as
Ukraine.54
When not relinquishing bases, the BAT has been immersed in legislative and
policy-related frameworks by the UK and BAT authorities. The BAT govern-
ment can make legal and administrative appointments, operating post oices in
the BAT, and working with other UK stakeholders, namely the BAS and the
UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. It also has revenue-raising capabilities, receiving
tax from over-wintering scientists, selling stamps, and earning interest on any
inancial reserves accumulated. The BAT, even with no indigenous population, is
treated like any other British territory (both mainland and overseas) in the sense
that it is expected to demonstrate ‘good governance’. The BAT Strategy Paper
2011–2013 set out plans for the BAT government to commission and fund special
projects in four priority areas—environmental protection, educational outreach,
heritage and governance/promoting UK sovereignty. We expect any new strategy
to continue focus on those areas and await an assessment regarding target setting
and achievement.55
Overall, Britain’s satisfaction with the accommodation achieved through the
Antarctic Treaty is based on its perceived strength in the key area of science, and
its ability to continue to administer the BAT as a British overseas territory. On
any objective assessment, the BAS has been one of the pre-eminent Antarctic
research agencies—perhaps the pre-eminent one—for over four decades. One of
the costs of the protracted debacle around the UK’s institutional arrangements for
polar research responsibility in 2012-13 may have been the damage it caused to the
BAS’s reputation (its ‘brand’ in contemporary commercial parlance).56 Whatever
the efect of the episode on its operational science capabilities, part of the Survey’s
inluence and utility on behalf of the UK was precisely its apparent endurance and
quality of science. The decision to label part of mainland Antarctica ‘Queen Eliza-
beth Land’, as part of the Queen’s 60th anniversary celebrations seemed quixotic
given earlier proceedings.57 It was also unusual, given the UK’s long-established
53
This is relected in the manner in which it dealt with the continental shelf submission issue. See note 19 above.
54
A. D. Hemmings, ‘Why did we get an international space station before an international Antarctic station?’,
Polar Journal 1: 1, 2011, pp. 5–16.
55
The projects funded by the BAT include a Compendium of Antarctic Peninsula visitor sites and a Southern Ocean
cruising handbook.
56
K. Dodds and A. D. Hemmings, ‘Recent developments in relations between the United Kingdom and the
Argentine Republic in the South Atlantic/Antarctic region’, Polar Record, available on Cambridge Journals
Online 2013, doi:10.1017/S0032247412000794.
57
K. Dodds, ‘Queen Elizabeth Land’, Polar Record, available on Cambridge Journals Online 2013, doi:10.1017/
S0032247413000016.
1443
practice of forgoing highly symbolic acts in relation to the Antarctic Treaty area,
preferring instead to point the inger at others (e.g. Argentina and Chile) more
inclined to do so.58
Concluding comments
We conclude this article in the knowledge that the UK is due to release an Arctic
Policy Framework in autumn 2013, which will raise interesting issues as to how the
UK’s Antarctic interests are presented within a bipolar context (that of ‘frontier
environments’) and/or continue to be understood within a regional realm, say
through the EU, which is itself a substantial bipolar investor in science and
technology. The UK’s Antarctic activities continue, especially in the aftermath
of the proposed BAS merger debate of 2012–13, to be interpreted as linked to its
sub-Antarctic and South Atlantic islands portfolio. This means inevitably that
it has to deal with Argentine reactions and the associated diplomatic costs in its
relations with other Latin American neighbours. Thus far, the UK has been able to
manage those costs by increasing its diplomatic presence, engaging in public diplo-
macy and maintaining relations with Chile. In November 2012, it was announced
that the BAS and the Chilean Antarctic Institute would be working together more
closely in Antarctic research. For now, the UK has taken a decision to promote its
sovereignty agenda while seeking collaboration with Chile and rebuing Argen-
tina. Mindful of its own sovereign interests in the Antarctic, the UK has repeat-
edly reiterated that it respects the sovereignty of the eight Arctic states.
Can UK Antarctic policy evolve in the future to encompass broader inter-
national engagement, including new states and new activities? Scientiic excel-
lence may at some point cease to be suicient to guarantee inluence within the
ATS. There is little appetite at present to do anything other than routine manage-
ment, and recent disputes over marine protected areas, ishing and other resource
interests suggest that there is no consensus on what those existing legal instru-
ments should be seeking to achieve. What evidence there is of Antarctic futures
research within the UK government suggests that there is no expectation (nor
even perhaps desire) for radical change in the ATS, in which case the UK should
do whatever it can to consolidate its territorial and resource interests, in the face of
continued Argentine impediments and growing impact and inluence from those
outside the original twelve signatories (including Russia and the United States)
who were instrumental in creating the 1959 Antarctic Treaty in the irst place.
58
This is not to suggest that the UK has been unwilling to contest (particularly) Argentine statements in ATS
forums with which it disagrees: see Dodds and Hemmings, ‘Recent developments in relations between the
United Kingdom and the Argentine Republic’.
1444

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Britain and The British Antarctic Territ

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Britain and the British Antarctic Territory

in the wider geopolitics of

the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean

International Afairs 89: 6 (2013) 1429–1444

Wider Antarctic and Southern Ocean geopolitics

And at the ICJ, Japan has argued that:

Figure 1: The Antarctic Treaty System and neighbouring regional isheries

The UK and the British Antarctic Territory

The UK and Antarctica: multiple roles and contexts

The UK and the ATS

The BAS and British polar science

The UK and the regional dimension

UK as claimant state and coastal state

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