National Academies Press: OpenBook

Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985 (1986)

Chapter: 19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources

« Previous: 18. Discussion on Technology and Economics of Minerals Development in Polar Areas
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 269
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 270
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 271
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 272
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 273
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 274
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 275
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 276
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 277
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 278
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 279
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 280
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 281
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 282
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 283
Suggested Citation:"19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism - Nonliving Resources." National Research Council. 1986. Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/621.
×
Page 284

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

19. The Antarctic Treaty System as a Resource Management Mechanism Nonliving Resources Christopher D. Beeby Antarctica generates powerful myths. Antarctic minerals and the negotiations under way concerning them have not been immune from the myth-making process. In its devel- oped form, to be found, notably but not exclusively, in unresearched press articles, the mythology is that Antarctica is a vast reservoir of wealth, a cornucopia of riches for which a race is on, regardless of the risks to a unique environment. The discussions initiated by the Antarctic Treaty consultative parties about a regime for antarctic minerals are designed to allow that race to be won. Exactly why such a popular view should have developed is not entirely clear to me. It may have something to do, as one commentator has suggested, with the inevitabil- ity of speculation about the last wilderness. Publication some years ago of figures, of a wholly theoretical kind, suggesting that X barrels of oil and Y barrels of gas will be found in Antarctica, may also have been a con- tributing factor. In all fairness, there should probably be added to this catalog the fact that when the consulta- tive parties began to talk in 1981, in earnest and as a matter of urgency, about a regime for antarctic minerals, they did not do as good a job as they might have in explaining to the rest of the world why they were tackling this issue. I do not intend to investigate every aspect of the myth that I have outlined. Others, to whose views I shall refer, are much better equipped than I am to inform us in detail of the current state of knowledge about minerals in Antarctica. What I can attempt, as somebody who works for the government that first drew attention to a potential problem about minerals in Antarctica, is to say something about the origins and purpose of the current 269

270 minerals regime negotiations. Since I have been fairly closely involved in those negotiations, I shall also assay an account of their progress to date. The common perception of those countries that are parties to the Antarctic Treaty--a perception that I think is now more widely shared following two debates in the U.N. about Antarctica--is that the major achievement of the treaty was to put a lid on the large potential for tension, rivalry, dispute and even conflict that was inherent in the preexisting situation. Those who initi- ated the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 had to confront a massive dispute about sovereignty in Antarctica. It is hard to imagine a setup that had a larger potential for governments to display their worst side. Here were seven countries that, over a rather long period, had claimed to exercise sovereignty in Antarctica, and the claims of three of them overlapped in the Antarctic Peninsula. As if this were not enough, five additional countries neither made claims themselves, nor recognized the claims of others (although two of them had asserted that their activities had established a basis of claim). Early on in the 1959 conference that produced the Antarctic Treaty, it became quite clear that there was no possibility of resolving the claims conflict either through the claimant states' or the nonclaimant states' giving away their basic positions. But a means was found--and enshrined in Article IV of the treaty--to put disputes about sovereignty to one side. The treaty founded on that article was, then, a very significant measure in favor of stability and security in Antarctica. It represented, and it still represents, that Antarctica will remain peaceful and stable--will not become, in the words of the treaty, The scene or object of inter- national discord. n The examination, within the Antarctic Treaty System, of the question of antarctic minerals had its origins there. It was a concern to preserve the stabilizing regime of the Antarctic Treaty (coupled with a worry about the impact on the environment if mining ever occurred on the continent) that led New Zealand, as far back as 1970 at the consultative meeting held in that year, to raise the question of antarctic minerals and to urge its treaty partners to consider the need for a comprehensive regime governing them. The treaty does not deal with resources of any kind, whether living or mineral. The New Zealand fear was that, if at some stage important resources were found, an

271 unregulated scramble could develop in relation, in par- ticular, to minerals. A scramble of that kind could obviously have the most damaging effect on a very special environment. But it could also bring back to center stage the conflicting positions about sovereignty that the treaty had put to one side. This is so because, in the absence of agreed rules, states that claim sovereignty and states that neither make claims to sovereignty nor recognize the claims of others would give totally con- flicting answers to a whole series of obvious questions arising if a minerals deposit of economic significance were ever found in Antarctica: "Who has title to the deposit? Who should license its exploitation? Who would regulate it? Who would get the taxes and royalties?" The answers to questions of this kind are entirely dependent on the view taken as to the location of sovereignty, if any, over the area in which the deposit is located. As Arthur Watts has pointed out (Chapter 6), Article IV does not resolve the issue of sovereignty in AntarC- tica or remove entirely the possibility of serious dis- agreement arising from conflicting positions on sover- eignty. The effective operation of the whole Antarctic Treaty System depends on restraint, on a willingness on the part of the parties to the treaty not to press their views about sovereignty to a logical conclusion. In the absence of agreed rules, discovery of significant mineral deposits in Antarctica would place maximum pressure on the willingness of all to continue to exercise that restraint. What motivated New Zealand in 1970 was a belief that the unregulated exploitation of antarctic minerals, if it ever occurred, would present a threat to the Antarctic Treaty. In the worst case, the result could be a break- down of the treaty, the loss of the disarmament regime that it contains, and, more generally, of the stabilizing effect that it has had on the entire area south of 60°S latitude. The origins of discussions about antarctic minerals are therefore essentially political rather than economic in nature. That this continues to be so is confirmed by what the experts tell us 14 years later about the mineral resources of Antarctica. The mythology, they say, is just that: there is no evidence at all that antarctic minerals ~epre- sent an economic treasure house ready for the taking in the foreseeable future. Despite many years of research,

272 a limited amount is known about antarctic minerals. A great deal more work has to be done to make other than speculative assessments. There are minerals onshore, but none of proven economic significance. What is more, 97 or 98 percent of the continent is covered by a mile or more of ice; nobody is going to have an economic interest in penetrating that for many years. Offshore, the prospects look a little more interesting. There may be oil and gas, but whether there is and, if so, where and in what quantities, is simply not known. There seems little doubt that it will be well into the next century before the extraction of oil or gas, if they exist, becomes an attractive economic nossibilitv. That uredic- _ coon Is not merely a result of the current oil-supply situation. It is also a function of the extremely adverse conditions in Antarctica, logistical and marketing problems, and the huge costs that would be involved at any time in mining in the region. We are told, again by the experts, that a giant or perhaps a super-giant oil field would need to be found in Antarctica before there would be an economic justification for pro- ceeding to exploit it. There is no evidence that such a field or fields exist. Summing up the studies that had been undertaken in 1982, James Zumberge, who is one of the experts whom we are fortunate to have as a contributor to this workshop, said: "All who have dealt with this matter have come to the same conclusion: no mineral deposits likely to be of economic value in the foreseeable future are known in Antarctica. This statement is not to say that Antarctica has no mineral resources, but rather, if they exist, they have no economic significance today or in the near-term future. (Zumberge goes on to point out that of course economic circumstances can change rapidly.) Another expert, Franze Tessensohn, writing a year later, said, after surveying the geophysical work that has been under- taken with respect to offshore areas frequently regarded as likely to be of economic interest before onshore areas, said: waif one tries to draw a conclusion based on all these investigations it can be stated that several interesting sedimentary basins exist on the antarctic shelves, but that we do not know much about their extent, about [the] nature and age of the sedimentary infill, about the thermal history they have undergone, and about possible source and reservoir rocks. So I thank we are still much in the phase of guessing."2

273 I return now to the history of the discussions about antarctic minerals within the Antarctic Treaty System. After the topic had been broached at the sixth consulta- tive meeting, in Tokyo, the 1970s saw a progressively more intensive discussion about minerals, both inside and outside the regular meetings of the consultative parties. The help of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research was asked for; other groups of experts were set to work. A landmark was reached at the ninth consultative meeting, in London in 1977, with the adoption of Recommendation IX-1, which looked forward to a regime for antarctic minerals and, in doing so, endorsed a number of principles about such a regime, which had been adopted at a special preparatory meeting held in Paris the previous year. The same recommendation made more specific an idea emerging from the previous consultative meeting, namely, that the nationals of consultative parties and other states should be urged to refrain from all exploration and exploitation of antarctic mineral resources "while making progress towards the timely adoption of an agreed regime concerning antarctic mineral resource activities. They will thus endeavor to ensure that, pending the timely adoption of agreed solutions pertaining to exploration and exploita- tion of mineral resources, no activity shall be conducted to explore or exploit such resources. n This contingent measure of restraint has been confirmed at subsequent meetings and is still extant. Recommendation X-1, adopted by the consultative par- ties' meeting in Washington in 1979, represented a further accretion of consensus on the contents of a minerals regime; and an informal meeting held in Washington in the following year made further progress in the same direction. The formal decision to begin detailed negotiations on a minerals regime was taken in Buenos Aires in 1981 at the eleventh consultative meeting. That decision was recorded in Recommendation XI-1, which, once again, picked up and enlarged areas of agreement reached at previous meetings. Recommendation XI-1 determined that a minerals regime should be concluded "as a matter of urgency. That determination needs to be viewed against the origins of the discussion on minerals. The most important reason for deciding to do the job quickly was that, for so long as a minerals question remained unresolved, it presented a potential threat to the Antarctic Treaty and the Antarc- tic Treaty System. It was, I believe, recognized in

274 Buenos Aires in 1981, that to postpone the negotiations until such time as a significant mineral deposit was found in Antarctica and there was a serious economic interest in exploiting it would very greatly complicate, if not make entirely unmanageable, the task of producing agreed answers to the complex issues raised. Since Recommendation XI-1 constitutes the basis for the negotiations now under way, it is worth noting the main areas of agreement that it recorded: The minerals regime should be negotiated by the consultative parties, and they should continue to play an active and responsible role in dealing with the question; The Antarctic Treaty must be maintained in its entirety; · The protection of the unique antarctic environ- ment and of its dependent ecosystems should be a basic consideration; · The consultative parties, in dealing with the question of mineral resources in Antarctica, should not prejudice the interests of all humankind in Antarctica; The delicate balance contained in Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty should not be affected by the regime, and the principles embodied in that article should be safeguarded; · The regime should include means for assessing the possible impact of mineral resource activities on the antarctic environment, determining whether such activities will be acceptable, and, if they are, regulating them; · The area of the regime should encompass the continent of Antarctica and its adjacent offshore areas but without encroachment on the deep seabed · The regime should cover all mineral resource activities at every stage; · The regime should be open in the sense that it should include provisions for adherence by states other than the consultative parties on the understanding that adhering states would be bound by the basic provisions of the Antarctic Treaty; · The regime should include provision for cooperative arrangements with other relevant international organizations; · The regime should protect the special responsibilities of the consultative parties with

275 respect to the environment of the whole Antarctic Treaty area, taking into account responsibilities that may be exercised in that area by other international organizations; and · The regime should promote the conduct of research necessary to make the environmental and resource management decisions that will be required. Additionally--and this is a central issue to which I shall return--Recommendation XI-1 stated that any agree- ment that may be reached on a regime should be acceptable and without prejudice to those states that claim sovereignty in Antarctica as well as to states that neither claim sovereignty nor recognize such claims. The negotiations foreshadowed by Recommendation XI-1 began in Wellington, New Zealand, in mid-1982. Since then there have been further negotiating sessions held in Wellington (January 1983), Bonn (July 1983), Washington (January 1984) and Tokyo (May 1984). The meeting, at which, for the first time, all the parties to the Antarctic Treaty and not just the consultative parties participated, was held in Rio de Janeiro in February/ March 1985 and a further meeting is scheduled in Paris September/October 1985. There are several issues, of uneven importance, which still have to be sorted out. Substantial progress has, however, been made to the point where some predictions about the main features of the agreement that is likely to emerge can be made. I need to stress that these are predictions only. Given that the negotiations are taking place under a rule of consensus, no solution on any point will be reached if it does not attract the support of all those participating in the decision-making. The regime will be expressed in the form of a legally binding international agreement, which, since its prin- cipal purpose is to preserve and strengthen the Antarctic Treaty, will, by one means or another, be closely linked with that treaty. Following the precedent of the Antarc- tic Treaty itself and also that of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the agreement will be open for accession by all interested states. The agreement will not be a complete and comprehensive mining code containing a detailed resolution of all the issues that may arise in future. A code of this kind, which is common in the national legislation of many countries, is ruled out for a number of reasons. The

276 most obvious one is that we are negotiating in a state of considerable ignorance, which has both the advantage that I have referred to (i.e., the absence of pressure result- ing from economic interest in an identified resource J ana disadvantages. The fact is that it is simply not possible to foresee now the whole range of mineral resource activi- ties that might one day be undertaken in Antarctica. Moreover, our present knowledge of the sensitivities of the antarctic environment is incomplete. The regime must, therefore, constitute a framework within which, as our knowledge increases, the details can be filled in as may be required. That framework will, however, have to be of a kind that will provide all concerned with a clear picture of the way in which decisions will be taken under the regime and the standards against which those decisions will be made. It will also need to ensure that, if mining does take place in Antarctica, those who undertake it have security of title, have their investments protected, and are not subject to the arbitrary disruption of author- ized activity. The regime will create new institutions, in some respects similar to, and other respects differing from, those established by the CCAMLR. There will be a central body or commission with authority relating to the whole area covered by the regime and the regulatory powers necessary to fill in the framework created by it. There will be a subordinate advisory committee, responsible for tendering scientific, technical and environmental advice. m ere will be a secretariat. And, by way of departure from the CCAMLR precedent, there will be a series of smaller so-called "regulatory committees, n with respon- sibility for certain aspects of the regulation of mining that may take place in an area identified by the commis- sion. Representation on regulatory committees will include, inter alla, the state or states, if any, claiming sovereignty in the identified area and the state wishing to undertake mineral resource activities or to sponsor such activities by its nationals. It will be within these bodies that, consistently with the principles established by the regime and further measures laid down by the com- mission, many of the detailed rules and regulations governing individual mining projects that might be deemed acceptable would be negotiated and adopted. The precise composition and functions of the institu- tions to be created and their method of taking decisions is still under negotiation. But there is, I think, by now, a rather generally shared view that the key to the

277 problem of finding an accommodation between states claim- ing sovereignty in Antarctica and states neither making nor recognizing such claims will be found largely within the institutional structure of the regime. As was anticipated in Buenos Aires, it became evident early on that the search for this accommodation between claimants and non-claimants was the single most intrac- table issue that had to be dealt with. It was also apparent that neither claimants nor non-claimants would be satisfied with a regime heavily loaded in one direction or another but accompanied by a disclaimer based on Article IV of the treaty (although a parallel to that article, as in the CCAMLR, will undoubtedly have its place in the regime). Both claimants and non-claimants demanded, with good reason, that, as foreshadowed in Recommendation XI-1, any minerals regime as a whole would have to be acceptable to them and without prejudice to their conflicting positions on the sovereignty question. At the first two negotiating sessions, much of the debate about this aspect arose from an examination of the broad question of where the powers required to regulate antarctic minerals should be located. The initial nonclaimant answer to that question was that, for the most part, regulation would have to be undertaken by the parties to the regime, acting collectively and without distinctions of any kind, through its institutions. The initial claimant response was that, for the most part, regulation would have to be undertaken by states acting individually, even if in a manner envisaged by and con- sistent with the regime or possibly, in certain instances, pursuant to authority delegated by institutions of the regime. With respect to areas of Antarctica subject to claims to sovereignty, the individual states having the major regulatory role would be those claiming sovereignty. At the meeting in Bonn in July 1983 the consultative parties accepted as a starting point for further negotia- tions a text that attempted to break this deadlock by switching attention from the question of location of the necessary regulatory powers and focusing, instead, on the institutions of the regime, their composition, and the method by which they would take decisions. The basic assumption underlying this approach was that it was not necessary and almost certainly not possible either to attempt to spell out in detail all the elements of an accommodation on the sovereignty question in the text of the agreement to be adopted or, in particular, to try, in the text itself, to reconcile strongly conflicting views

278 about the substantive powers of claimant and nonclaimant states. The alternative--also in part determined by the lack of knowledge of all the issues that would require regulation--was to leave a significant number of important decisions to be hammered out after the regime had been adopted, through a continuing process of negotiation on a case-by-case basis. Power to take those decisions would be given to the institutions of the regime, but the regime would endeavor to ensure that the composition of those institutions and their method of taking decisions were such as to give claimants and nonclaimants alike a reasonable assurance that their divergent interests would be protected. As in the case of the Antarctic Treaty itself, and consistently with the spirit of forbearance that it embodied and that has informed all the work undertaken since its adoption, the sovereignty issue will not be confronted but stepped around. The regime will cover the area, offshore as well as onshore, referred to in Recommendation XI-1, and it will cover every stage of mineral resource activities within that area. A distinction will, however, be drawn between, on the one hand, prospecting, defined narrowly to include only activities presenting a minimum ~f risk to the environment and, on the other, exploration and develop- ment. Prospecting, which will not confer title on the prospector, will not require prior authorization. It will, however, be subject to environmental controls applicable to all stages of mineral resource activity. There will be power vested in the commission to impose additional constraints on prospecting, that could have the effect of preventing or limiting any category of prospecting found to present hazards. Provision is also likely to be made to allow for review of prospecting - activity that, for example, because of the concentration of prospecting activity in a particular region or because of conflict with other legitimate uses of Antarctica, is thought to present a special problem. By contrast, in recognition of the very much larger environmental hazards that could be involved, exploration and development will be expressly prohibited until such time as they are authorized by the institutions of the regime. Initially this will require a decision by the commission, acting on the advice of the advisory commit- tee, as to whether or not it should authorize the sub- mission of applications for exploration and development of an identified area. That determination would consti- tute a critical but not a final decision. A positive

279 determination by the commission would still require that individual applications for exploration and development be scrutinized by the advisory committee and the relevant regulatory committee. Positive results there would still, in turn, require a final approval by the commission before either form of activity could begin. It is of some importance to note that if the regime is structured in this way with respect to exploration and development, it will stand in sharp contrast to the marine living resources regime established by the CCAMLR. The basic proposition underlying the CCAMLR--that activity is permitted until restrained--will be reversed: the only mineral resource activities that would confer title on the operator and might confer economic benefit will be prohibited unless specifically authorized. The regime will implement the requirement set out in Recommendation XI-1 that the protection of the antarctic environment and of its dependent ecosystems must be a basic consideration. This will be done in several ways. There will, first, be a set of environmental principles set out near the beginning of the agreement. These principles will cover every phase of activity, including prospecting, and they will be applicable to both operators and institutions created by the regime. They will be relevant at every point to test the acceptability of proposed activity; neither states nor the institutions of the regime will be free to ignore them. Among the prin- ciples that it will embody are the following: that no mineral resource activity may take place until adequate information is available to assess its possible impact and it can be judged that such activity will meet rigorous criteria; and that no such activity shall take place until the technology and procedures (including contingency plans in the event of accidents) are available to ensure compliance with these criteria and there exists the capacity to monitor key environmental and ecosystem components. Judgments about the acceptability of proposed activities will be required to take account, inter alla, of the cumulative impact of mineral resource activities and other uses of Antarctica. A second environmentally important aspect of the regime will involve setting aside, as off limits to all mineral resource activities, existing Specially Protected Areas, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and any further area that for historic, ecological, environ- mental, scientific, or other reasons the commission has designated a prohibited area.

280 The fact that exploration and development will be forbidden until they are determined to be acceptable on environmental grounds will be a significant bar to haz- ardous activity--the more provision is made for the consensus. The advisory committee will play a key role in decision making under the regime. All the views expressed by it so if, as seems likely, determination to be made by _ _ _ _ on a particular proposal, i.e., not merely majority views, will be made known to the bodies to which it gives advice. Provision is likely to be made for the advisory committee to give public notice of its meetings, to receive submis- sions from concerned international organizations, and to make public its views. Further consideration will be given, in the ongoing negotiations, to alternative tech- niques for ensuring that environmental considerations and advice are given proper weight and are not overridden by an interest in promoting and deriving benefit from mineral resource activities. Finally, there will be provision for the suspension, modification, or cancellation of authorized exploration and development if a determination is made that there has been a failure to comply with the rules applicable to it or that new and unforeseen risks to the environment have arisen. m e regime will require the states parties to take measures to ensure compliance with it. liability in the event of accident. It will deal with It will make pro- vlslon for the secelemenc or alspuces concerning the interpretation or application of the regime. These are among the matters that require further attention in the negotiations. Finally, the regime will, in several ways, take account of the interests in Antarctica of the international com- munity at large. A general point needs, first, to be made. The regime is intended to, and will, preserve and strengthen the Antarctic Treaty. The benefits to all _ countries trom a guarantee that one sixth or the world will continue to be demilitarized, that scientific research in that region will continue to be conducted under conditions of unique freedom and cooperation, and that a globally important environment will continue to receive protection are considerable. That point has been spelled out at some length in the U.N. debates; I do not need to elaborate on it further here. The specifics are also important. The consultative parties have not lost sight of the fact that other inter-

281 national agreements extend to Antarctica and other inter- national organizations have, or will have, competence south of 60°S latitude. As I have indicated, the regime will implement that part of Recommendation XI-1 that says the definition of the area will be such as to involve no encroachment on the deep seabed. As also foreshadowed in Recommendation XI-1, the regime will protect the special responsibilities of the consultative parties with respect to the environment throughout the whole of the Antarctic Treaty area. But, in this respect as well, the respon- sibilities of other international organizations will not be ignored. The regime is likely, in fact, to contain an all-embracing provision requiring the commission to cooperate with all interested international organizations and, more specifically, to develop a cooperative working relationship with any international organization having competence in mineral resources in areas adjacent to those covered by the regime. Then, of course, there is the basic point that the regime under consideration is not a closed system. Subject only to a willingness to subscribe to the Antarctic Treaty or to its basic provisions (the final choice has yet to be made between these alternatives), every state will be able to adhere to the agreement setting up the regime. to participate in mining found to be acceptable in Antarctica. If it decides to exercise that right, it will participate in all the decision-making relating to its actual or proposed activity. Are there other elements that might be included in a regime and that would enhance its status vis-a-vis coun- tries not participating in negotiations? Participation by the nonconsultative parties to the treaty in the min- erals regime negotiations should provide further insight into this aspect of the regime. So should this workshop. I shall not discuss the question further here except to note, in conclusion, one avenue that I believe to be closed. Suggestions have been made, in the U.N. debates and in the literature, that Antarctica or its resources or some part of them should be regarded as part of "the common heritage of mankind." The concept of the common heritage of mankind could be applied to outer space and the deep seabed because of a consensus on the status of those areas. Each had been the subject of extremely limited human activity, and neither had been the subject of any claim of sovereignty. It is quite another matter to Every state party will be entitled

282 attempt to apply this notion to an area that, by now, has generated substantial history of human activity, that has been subject to claims of sovereignty dating back more than 75 years, and that is the subject of a preexisting legal regime among the states most directly concerned. It is neither reasonable nor realistic to suppose that the common heritage concept can make headway with respect to Antarctica. There is no consensus on the legal status of the continent that would permit that. There is another comment that needs to be made about the common heritage concept. As it has developed in the U.N., that concept has a strong exploitation orientation It looks, essentially, to the development of resources for the benefit of all, especially of the developing countries, rather than to the protection of the environ- ment in which those resources are located. It is, I believe, significant that in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention the environmental controls on deep seabed mining in the common heritage area are notably weak. Against this background, those who advocate, on the one hand, stringent environmental controls in Antarctica and, on the other hand, the adoption within the U.N. of a common heritage minerals regime are pursuing incompatible goals. I should like to elaborate on my prepared remarks about the origin of the antarctic minerals regime negotiations by drawing a hypothetical analogy to the discovery of a mountain of gold in the area of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand. Once the gold were discovered there would be considerable pressure on the New Zealand government to develop rules to regulate its exploitation and to treat the deposit as any other deposit of gold located in New Zealand. This would provoke reactions from non-claimant countries, rejecting New Zealand's contention that its rules should govern exploitation, which would in turn create the possibility of unregulated development and destabilization of Antarctica similar to that which existed before the Antarctic Treaty and led to its negotiation. I should also like to respond to several comments made during the workshop. First, in 1975 the government of New Zealand proposed to prohibit minerals development in Antarctica and declare it a world park. But it did not then make the statement that it would abandon its claim to Antarctica. The reaction from other Antarctic Treaty consultative parties at that time indicated that they were not willing to forgo minerals development in .

283 Antarctica for all time, so the New Zealand proposal was not pursued. Second, the decision not to reject the possibility of antarctic minerals exploitation does not necessarily indicate that the regime under negotiation must be a ~prodevelopment" regime as it is characterized by some nongovernmental organizations. sibility, which is currently being pursued: constructed objectively to address the question, once it arises, of whether specific types of mineral development activity should be permitted in specific areas of Antarctica, subject to stringent safeguards for safety, conservation, and protection of the environment. Third, the rationale for the provision in Antarctic Treaty Recommendation XI-1, that HA regime on antarctic mineral resources should be concluded as a matter of _ urgency (emphasis added) is not directly related to recent interest in Antarctica. The recommendation was concluded in 1981, two Years before U.N. interest was expressed. · There is a third pos- . a regime _ At that time, the experts were saying that minerals Development in Antarctica was not commercially viable. While there are different reasons for the need for urgency, I favor the "gap" theory; that is, that as long as the regime for minerals development remains unresolved, it will pose a threat to the Antarctic Treaty System and cooperation within that system. With respect to the negotiations themselves, there are four differences among states involved in the negotiations that complicate these negotiations and must be taken into account: (1) Countries claiming territory in Antarctica and those that do not recognize such claims, (2) Countries with centrally planned economies and those without, (3) and those without, and (4) Countries close to Antarctica whose ecosystems might be affected by antarctic minerals development and those farther away, whose ecosystems are unlikely to be directly affected by such activities. Countries with access to the requisite technology Finally, the primary matters yet to be settled in the negotiations are the exact methods and procedures by which decisions will be taken e Inspection will be an important element in the minerals regime.

284 NOTES 1. Zumberge, J.H., 1982. Potential Mineral Resource Availability and Possible Environment Problems in Antarctica. In J.I. Charney, ed. New Nationalism and the Use of Common Spaces, Allenheld, Osmund and Company (Totowa, N.J.); pp. 115-154. 2. Tessensohn, F. 1983. Present Knowledge of Nonliving Resource in the Antarctic, Possibilities for Their Exploitation and Scientific Perspectives. In R. Wolfrum, ed. Antarctic Challenge: Conflicting Interests, Cooperation, Environmental Protection, Economic Development: Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Symposium, Duncker & Humblot (Berlin); pp. 189-210.

Next: 20. Panel Discussion on Nonliving Resources »
Antarctic Treaty System: An Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Beardmore South Field Camp, Antarctica, January 7-13, 1985 Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $125.00
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The international agreements covering Antarctica are models of cooperation and joined purpose. Convening at the Beardmore South Field Camp, near the Transantarctic Mountains, the Polar Research Board studied the Antarctic Treaty System and its implications for improved relationships between countries. This study examines the structure, meaning, and international repercussions of the Antarctic Treaty, focusing on the ways it benefits both the scientific and political communities. Chapters cover the history, science, environment, resources, and international status of Antarctica.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!