51³Ô¹Ï

Antarctica¡¯s natural environment and international governance arrangements are both unique. This frigid region, containing the Antarctic continent and surrounding Southern Ocean, is home to the largest body of ice in the world and impressive biological communities¡ªgregarious penguins and seals, majestic whales and superabundant krill. Antarctica¡¯s cold helps to regulate Earth¡¯s atmosphere and the temperature of the oceans while the ice sheet locks up water that would otherwise dangerously increase world sea levels.

The Antarctic has been governed by the  since 1961. Twelve States signed it in 1959 to resolve unique territorial disagreements, guarantee freedom of scientific research and encourage scientific collaboration. In subsequent decades, a larger Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) was created with additional treaties signed, including the  (CCAMLR, in force since 1982) and the  (in force since 1998), which focus on protecting the Antarctic environment. Today, 58 States are signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. Of these, 29 are ¡°consultative parties¡±, which were either original signatories or have demonstrated sufficient scientific work in Antarctica to contribute to decision-making in the regular meetings of parties. The remaining parties are ¡°non-consultative¡± and, although they can attend Antarctic Treaty meetings, do not participate in voting on measures.

But how well is ATS protecting Antarctica¡¯s environment? The continent¡¯s ice and its biological communities face grave, systemic threats from global climate change. Both atmospheric and ocean heating act on Antarctic ice to melt it slowly from above and below, undermining glacial stability in different parts of the continent. Global warming also heats and acidifies the ocean, which, as current models suggest, diminishes the ability of animals to find sufficient prey to maintain nutrition or even reproduce.

Antarctica¡¯s environment also faces localized environmental impacts resulting from human activities, such as resource exploitation, tourism and scientific research. Increasing resource exploitation, particularly fishing activities, might, without proper management, adversely affect Antarctic animal populations and the associated ecosystem services they offer. A species such as krill (Euphausia superba), which is the largest wild animal species by collective biomass, is not only the keystone species of the Antarctic ecosystem, preyed upon by many higher order animals, but it also sequesters large amounts of carbon.

The tourism industry in Antarctica, although quite small by global standards, continues to grow. The tourist season happens during the short southern summer and is tightly concentrated in geographical scope. Even the approximately 120,000 visitors to Antarctica (summer 2023¨C2024) can have outsized impacts on the continent¡¯s ecosystems, which have evolved to survive the rigours of the Antarctic cold and long winter nights.

The Antarctic Treaty System is principally dedicated to the environmental threats that arise locally, including those from fishing, tourism and scientific research, and can be controlled as such. The Protocol on Environmental Protection requires environmental impact assessment of new human activities in the area, the most significant of which is the construction of new scientific facilities. The Protocol also banned mining activities in Antarctic indefinitely. Tourist activities are loosely regulated through the combined efforts of the Treaty parties and the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, which represents most private companies operating in the industry. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is the principal forum for controlling fishing activities and conservation measures. However, CCAMLR member States have, in the past decade or so, increasingly diverged in their attitudes on these exploitation and conservation questions and struggled to achieve consensus on controlling measures. 

Although a profoundly international issue and region, Antarctica is not closely connected to the 51³Ô¹Ï or its specialized agencies. The Antarctic Treaty parties, in part because of the territorial sensitivities involved, have argued that ATS is the appropriate and most effective forum for dealing with Antarctic matters. The original signatories were quite deliberate in their decision to build a regime separate from the 51³Ô¹Ï, although in its preamble, the Treaty states that it contributes to ¡°the purposes and principles embodied in the Charter of the 51³Ô¹Ï¡±. The Treaty further states that the parties aim to build ¡°cooperative working relations with those Specialized Agencies of the 51³Ô¹Ï¡­ having a scientific or technical interest in Antarctica¡± (Article III.2).

On several occasions, some Member States have used 51³Ô¹Ï forums to critique Antarctic governance and geopolitics. , before the Antarctic Treaty was negotiated, India proposed that the ¡±question of Antarctica¡± be raised in the 51³Ô¹Ï General Assembly. Although they withdrew their proposal before debate occurred, India was concerned that a small group of States was trying to exclude the rest of the world from governing Antarctica and also, more specifically, with nuclear testing there; the Antarctic Treaty eventually dealt with the latter point. In the mid-1970s, some members of the Group of 77 developing countries argued, in the Food and Agriculture Organization¡¯s Committee on Fisheries, that Antarctic Treaty parties¡ªagain, mostly States of the industrialized and developed global North¡ªwere not managing Antarctica¡¯s marine living resources in the interests of all humanity, especially the peoples of developing countries.

The most significant encounter between the 51³Ô¹Ï and ATS occurred in the 1980s. In a speech to the General Assembly in September 1982, the Prime Minister of Malaysia argued that Antarctica was an example of a region from which small, developing nations were excluded from power and decision-making by rich, developed nations. Many other members of the Non-Aligned Movement argued that ATS was a closed system that prevented access to, and decision-making about, resource exploitation in the South. The ¡°Question of Antarctica¡± was placed on the General Assembly¡¯s agenda in 1983 and discussed annually until 1994, and less frequently since then and until 2005, when the agenda item was not inscribed for future discussion.

The Treaty parties generally defended their separate regime by arguing that, in the first place, it was doing a good job of preserving peace and protecting the environment, and secondly, any State could sign the Treaty. The ¡°Question of Antarctica¡± agenda item allowed other 51³Ô¹Ï Member States to learn a great deal about the Antarctic environment and its governance arrangements, with many coming to appreciate its achievements. Malaysia, the principal initiator of 51³Ô¹Ï-based discussions of ATS, signed the Treaty in 2011.

How might 51³Ô¹Ï bodies and specialized agencies concern themselves with Antarctica? Whatever strains it might be under, the Antarctic Treaty System is broadly doing an effective job of managing localized human impacts on the Antarctic and Southern Ocean environments. All States with either scientific or commercial activities and concerns in Antarctica are parties to the Antarctic Treaty and related instruments. And any State that wishes to sign the Treaty can do so. Indeed, the  stated specifically that ¡°The Antarctic Treaty system continues to provide a unique example of international cooperation.¡±

Yet not all 51³Ô¹Ï Member States are parties to the Antarctic Treaty. For example, only one African State, South Africa, is a signatory. Least developed countries and small island States have almost no capacity to engage in Antarctic activities that would give them an active voice in Antarctic Treaty deliberations. And the recent experience of negotiating the new Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) suggests that perhaps the parties to CCAMLR  to non-Antarctic Treaty parties. As the case of climate change makes clear, there are global threats to Antarctica that will have global ramifications. Antarctica¡¯s environmental challenges cannot fully be addressed by the Antarctic Treaty System. The  and its regular conference of parties, for example, are crucial to efforts aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

Although the ¡°Question of Antarctica¡± has not been on the General Assembly¡¯s agenda since 2005, two successive 51³Ô¹Ï Secretaries-General have given attention to the region because of the threats of climate change. Ban Ki-moon was the first Secretary-General to visit Antarctica in November 2007, and he observed the  of climate change in both the ice and in animal communities. Ant¨®nio Guterres visited Antarctica in November 2023. He highlighted the effects of climate change in advance of the twenty-eighth 51³Ô¹Ï Climate Change Conference (COP 28), held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 30 November to 13 December 2023. He said that . As an environmental and moral leader, the Secretary-General is nobly acting on behalf of the Antarctic environment and the peoples of the world. The Antarctic environment, as with the global environment, needs all the defenders it can get.