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4e
Antarctica Prior to the Antarctic Treaty
A Political and Legal Perspective
Cristian Maquicira
.
I apologize for the haste with which these general
comments had to be compiled, and, therefore for the lack
of time for adequate research and reflection. I have the
somewhat uneasy sensation of someone who attends a
performance at the opera and is plucked out of the
audience to sing one of the roles.
Antarctica, the "Terra Australis Incognita" of the
ancient maps of the sixteenth century, has been through-
out history among many other things a source of theories,
fantasy, incredible heroism, commercial activity, and
sometimes thinly disguised greed; of enormous scientific
knowledge, conflict, and imaginative solutions. It has
brought out the best in the human spirit and occasionally
the worst.
Political and legal perspectives on Antarctica prior
to the Antarctic Treaty--the subject of my presentation--
represent an interesting combination of increasing
conflict and scientific and commercial activity. This
combination stems mainly from the varying decisions of
governments to develop an interest in the Antarctic for
political, strategic, economic, scientific, or other
reasons. Their different emphases led some countries
with antarctic interests to establish legitimate
territorial claims of sovereignty while others did not.
The first country to establish a claim was the United
Kingdom, through the letters of patent of 1908. The
final delimitation of the claim took place in 1917. The
United Kingdom put under its control some of the best
whaling grounds in the Southern Ocean. These included
the Antarctic Peninsula and the islands east of it.
The United Kingdom claim was followed by claims from
France, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Argentina, and
Chile, which even though latecomers to the quest for
.
49
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antarctic real estate, had been engaged in commercial and
other activities in the region since the nineteenth
century. As is well known, the claims of Argentina,
Chile, and the United Kingdom overlap. The legal bases
for all these claims are a combination of discovery,
occupation, contiguity, inherited rights, geological
affinity, proximity, administrative acts, and also
symbolic acts.
At the same time, other states actively engaged in
antarctic activities refused to recognize these claims.
This refusal set the stage for one type of conflict--those
between claimant and nonclaimant states. The overlapping
claims of Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom set
the stage for another type. The immediate post-World War
II period, and especially the cold war period between the
superpowers, also had its impact on antarctic politics.
Nonrecognition of claims was continually and sometimes
not very politely expressed, particularly by the united
States and the USSR, every time one of the claimant
countries took an initiative to enhance its claim by,
among other things, offering facilities for expeditions,
announcing the application of conventions in its antarctic
territory, or recalling the status of its territory when
a decision to overfly was announced by one of the
nonclaimant states.
Inevitably, these notes by the claimant states were
simply not acknowledged by the nonclaimants. Or they
were responded to by the nonclaimant state in the fol-
lowing terms: that the claim was not recognized and that
the state in question reserved all its rights in Antarc-
tica and also reserved the right to make a claim of its
own. This is particularly true with regard to the
position of the United States, which throughout the
. . . . . .
period prior to the Antarctic Treaty oscillated between
_
· ~ · ~ _ ~ ~ _ ~ _
nonrecognition or claims and, on at least two occasions,
possible assertion of a claim. At the same time, the
United States was the country most active in Antarctica
and had a basis for a claim as strong as that of any
country.
In fact, in 1939 the United States reconsidered its
longstanding position of nonrecognition of claims, and
the U.S. Department of State handed President Roosevelt a
study recommending that the United States seriously
consider making a claim that would cover not only Marie
Byrd Land but also part or all of the Antarctic
Peninsula. This study and its conclusions had a par-
ticularly strong impact on the governments of Chile and
Argentina and provided an incentive for them formally to
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define their antarctic territories, which was done the
following year.
The formalization of Argentine and Chilean sovereignty
in Antarctica gave new impetus to what were increasing
complications in the area. Claim overlaps among Chile,
Argentina, and the United Kingdom were formally estab-
lished. In addition, it must be borne in mind that World
War II had begun and the Axis powers had begun to use
Antarctica in their war operations. Such was the case
when the Axis captured three Norwegian whaling factory
ships and eleven catcher ships off Queen Maud Land. The
United Kingdom, with one eye on the Axis powers and
another on Argentina, in order to stop the Axis from
seizing control of the south side of the Drake Passage,
intensified its naval activity in the Antarctic. So did
Argentina.
At the same time, a not very friendly exchange of
notes and some waving of flags occurred between Chile
Argentina, because their claims also overlap. Unable to
solve this territorial dispute, both countries agreed in
1941 that a South American Antarctic existed and that
they had exclusive rights over it.
In 1946, following the war, the United Kingdom issued
the gingham Declaration, by which the United Kingdom
indicated that it planned to continue its activities with
no regard to the Chilean-Argentine claims. At that time
it sent warships, led by the H.M.S. Nigeria, to the area.
In 1947, there was an incident between the United
Kingdom and Argentina in Deception Island, where Argentina
had decided to build a base. Argentine troop ships
arrived and left before the Royal Navy made its
entrance. The base still stands.
Also in 1947, the President of Chile visited Antarc-
tica and reaffirmed Chilean titles in the area. Later,
in 1948, Chile and Argentina, through the Vergara-La Roza
Declaration, recognized the external limits of their
claims and agreed to act jointly with regard to antarctic
affairs. This agreement, and increasing naval activity
by the United Kingdom, fired the intention of both
countries to apply the Rio Treaty of 1947 in Antarctica
with regard to British activities there.
The fact that the Rio Treaty carried a U.S. reserva-
tion designed especially to avoid taking sides in
Antarctica did not diminish the positions of Chile and
Argentina with regard to the South American Antarctic,
which had been established by the Vergara-La Roza
and
Declaration.
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Parallel to these developments, the United States in
1947 once again considered establishing a claim in
Antarctica. This was the objective of Operation
Highjump, the single largest expedition ever dispatched
to Antarctica commanded by Admiral Byrd.
In 1948, besides the Vergara-La Roza Declaration, the
United Kingdom, Argentina, and Chile signed a tripartite
naval agreement, by which they decided that there was no
need to send naval ships south of 60°S latitude. This
agreement was renewed annually until 1956. A major
consideration behind this agreement was the need to solve
the problems between Argentina, the United Kingdom, and
Chile in the face of common problems vis-a-vis the
nonclaimants. Also in 1948, the United States decided to
try to put an end to these and other problems by propos-
ing the international administration of Antarctica by the
seven claimant nations, with the United States declaring
its sovereignty over the unclaimed sector. The U.S.
arrangement would have produced an eight-power trustee-
ship under the United Nations. The objective of this
proposal was not only to solve conflicts between claimants
and nonclaimants and among the claimants themselves but
also, and here the cold war creeps into Antarctica, to
prevent a possible Soviet claim. It must be recalled
that this initiative was put forward at about the same
time that the Berlin blockade was put into effect.
The U.S. trusteeship scheme could not work because
there were no inhabitants in what would be the territory
held in trust. Moreover, if Antarctica had been placed
under the United Nations, the scheme would have made
Soviet Union intervention in Antarctica possible. In
1948, the Soviets had not intervened in Antarctica for
almost 130 years, except to carry out whaling
activities. These reasons led the United States to
modify its proposal and move toward a condominium, which
is another way of internationalizing the Antarctic. This
idea was rejected by Argentina and Chile. The united
Kingdom favored it in order to put an end to its disputes
with Chile and Argentina, while the other claimants gave
the plan a lukewarm reception.
The Chilean response included what is now known as the
Escudero Declaration, by which Chile totally rejected the
condominium scheme but at the same time suggested a modus
vivendi that would welcome scientific cooperation and
include a five-year moratorium on territorial claims.
Portions of the declaration state that means should be
found to alleviate the dangers of conflict and inter-
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national incidents in Antarctica without prejudice to the
individual rights of interested nations in Antarctica.
The significance of the Escudero Declaration, which
had no immediate consequence, is that it contained the
elements of the final solution to the claims issue found
in Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty.
In the early 1950s, mainly because of the rejection of
its proposals to internationalize Antarctica, the United
States reconsidered establishing a claim as a means to
ensure control of Antarctica by the United States and
friendly nations. This concept excluded the USSR at a
time of mounting cold war tensions.
India became worried by the conflict-prone situation
in Antarctica in 1956 and tried to include the item on
the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) agenda for
that year. Chile and Argentina, on the basis of their
claims, persuaded India not to press the issue.
At the beginning of the International Geophysical Year
(IGY) in 1957, heightened problems existed between
claimants and nonclaimants, among claimants and between
the superpowers of the cold war. Yet the exclusively
scientific nature of the IGY and the opening of partici-
pation in the Process to all interested states were the
first steps toward intense international cooperation in
Antarctica as it was later embodied in the l9S9 Antarctic
Treaty. The IGY revealed the possibilities for countries
with conflicting interests in the region and elsewhere to
work together for a common wood.
~ —
In 1958, India renewed its efforts to include Antarc-
tica as an item on the UNGA agenda, this time based on
the possibility of the exploitation of resources in the
area. Its initiative was withdrawn because of the
advanced state of preparation for the Washington Con-
ference on Antarctica that produced the Antarctic Treaty
In conclusion, the period of antarctic activity prior
to the Antarctic Treaty was characterized, on the one
hand, by enormous scientific development and activity
and, on the other hand, by serious and sustained con-
flicts, which could be summed up in the following way:
.
Claimant states will not renounce their claims;
Nonclaimant states will not recognize these claims; and
There was conflict between the superpowers.
Finally, I wish to reiterate that I have only tried to
indicate in a disorganized way some of the highlights of
some of the problems that antarctic countries faced
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throughout the century before the approval of the
Antarctic Treaty. It is only a sketch and not a complet
painting of the antarctic situation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
e
Auburn, E. F. 1982. Antarctic Law and Politics, C.
Hurst and Co. (London); Croom-Helm (Cansina), 316 pp.
Pinochet de la Barra, O. 1955. La Antarctica Chilean,
Editorial del Pacifico, S. A. (Santiago), p. 62.
Quigg, P. W. 1983. A Pole Apart: The Emerging Issue of
Antarctica, New Press, A Twentieth Century Fund
Report, McGraw-Hill Book Company (New York), p. 299.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
south american
