Epilogue

This epilogue reflects on Antarctic diplomacy and science after 1980 in light of the greening of Antarctica that occurred after 1959. It suggests ways in which the failed ratification of the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA) of 1988 and the successful negotiation of the Madrid Protocol of 1991 closely followed the intellectual and conceptual contours laid down between 1959 and 1980 in the major environmental agreements following the Antarctic Treaty. It also reflects on the seeming absence of ice—the dominant natural element in Antarctica—from early and recent Antarctic geopolitics and how ice might affect future Antarctic diplomacy and geopolitics.

Arguing with Seals

This chapter analyzes the scientific and diplomatic debates on the question of sealing and seal conservation from 1964 to 1972, particularly the negotiation of the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals. Because the Antarctic Treaty did not apply to the high seas, both scientists and diplomats noted that their 1964 conservation efforts did not cover animals, such as seals and penguins, when they were in the ocean. This gap seemed problematic when there was a push in the mid-1960s to renew commercial sealing in the Antarctic. The Antarctic Treaty parties thus committed to negotiating a treaty to cover seals in the high seas. They persisted in negotiating this agreement even when the prospect of renewed sealing lapsed, because seals and sealing became a useful subject by which the treaty parties, and scientists within SCAR, could continue to mark out their authority and positions for the Antarctic.

The Plenitude of Nature and Sovereignty

This chapter investigates how the foundational tension of Antarctic geopolitics over sovereignty and territory fared in the context of discussions on mineral and marine living resources in the 1970s. It investigates how the Antarctic Treaty parties fought off concerted interests from forums and states outside the treaty, including the Non-Aligned Movement within the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and the Food and Agriculture Organization, and growing international environmentalist organizations. It also investigates how the Antarctic Treaty parties tried to shift the balance of power among themselves, especially between the claimant and nonclaimant states. In the end, the Antarctic Treaty parties as a whole secured the treaty from outside forces, and the claimant states successfully perpetuated their ideas about sovereignty and territory in the changing context of the UN Law of the Sea against the acquiescent nonclaimants.

Seeing the Southern Ocean Ecosystem

This chapter investigates how the marine ecosystem came to be the central object of conservation in the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources of 1980. This was a novel move in international law, because the protection of an entire ecosystem had never before been enshrined in a treaty. In the 1960s the Soviet Union began to investigate the potential of krill and other fisheries in the Antarctic. This worried other treaty parties and environmentalists because over-exploitation of krill would have flow-on effects on its predators. While the Soviet Union, joined by Japan and others, was resolutely pro-exploitation, other nations, led by the United States and Britain, were more pro-conservation, particularly focusing on protecting the ecosystem as a whole. The eventual codification of ecosystem protection demonstrated the power of the pro-conservation states at that time.

Principles for “Unprincipled Men”

This chapter investigates the scientific arguments for and diplomatic negotiation of the conservation of Antarctic wildlife between 1959 and 1964. The subject of wildlife conservation was raised by biologists working within the newly created Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and they proposed a series of measures to the Antarctic Treaty consultative parties. The treaty parties negotiated the matter, passing the Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora in 1964. This chapter argues that nature conservation became a tool of advancement and power both for biologists, who wanted institutional standing within the Antarctic scientific community, and for diplomats, who wanted to fill the gaps and silences of the Antarctic Treaty with meaning and with structures for controlling each other. The Agreed Measures were the first step away from the geophysical conception of Antarctica that undergirded the negotiation of the Antarctic Treaty.

Mining the Deep South

This chapter investigates the debates surrounding possible exploitation of minerals in Antarctica between 1969 and 1977. In the late 1960s several mineral and oil companies began investigating whether Antarctica could be exploited. This worried the Antarctic Treaty parties, for there was no agreed upon framework for regulating mineral exploitation. In the context of (apparent) global resource scarcity and the spread of offshore oil exploitation in the Arctic, the treaty parties tried to develop a framework for managing mineral exploitation. Although by 1977 they had only agreed on a moratorium, this chapter demonstrates the contours of their debates, especially the temporalities of their negotiations (focused on the future), and the centrality of the concept of “environmental impact” in the conceptual frameworks of both scientists and diplomats.

Introduction

This introduction situates this book within the fields of Antarctic, environmental, and international history. It poses the central question of the book: How did Antarctica transform from a cold, abiotic, and sterile wilderness into a fragile environment and ecosystem demanding international protection and management? It outlines how both parties to the Antarctic Treaty and scientists have sought order, stability, power, and authority in geopolitical, institutional, conceptual, and epistemic realms. It argues for reading international treaties as complex texts that articulate and shape human-environment relationships. It further argues for an approach to international environmental history that balances understanding the material reality of the physical environment with a range of imaginative and conceptual understandings of it. The chapter provides a concise guide to the development of Antarctic geopolitics after 1945, as well as a gloss of the Antarctic Treaty.