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Abstract
This paper suggests that Global South states should prioritize Antarctica as a core trans-national issue because of the potential rewards it offers in terms of opportunities for advancing their common political and development agendas. Global South states are significantly underrepresented in Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) governance. Consequently, they have minimal input into the shaping and direction of ATS decision-making on issues such as Antarctic bio-prospecting, fishing and tourism or, critically, into debates about the role and status of Antarctica in the international system. Nevertheless, Antarctica represents opportunities for Global South states to realize shared cosmopolitan democracy and environmental justice goals. While contemporary media coverage of the southernmost continent has focused on its vital role in global climate change, Antarctica is also important for Global South states because it is a contested, non-sovereign area without a clearly defined status or future (international or global commons, Common Heritage of Mankind, global wilderness?) that could be integral to their future development. The paper advocates the benefits for developing states of participating in Antarctic governance, drawing on theories of cosmopolitan democracy and environmental justice to demonstrate that these can be utilized by Global South states to reinvigorate and move forward international debates about the role, status and future of Antarctica, and provides a central place for Global South states in that future. Additionally, these theories can be practically applied to Global South development goals with respect to issues such as the management of Antarctica, access to sustainable resources and benefit sharing from Antarctic resource extraction.
Notes
1 Berkman, Science into Policy, 163–191, 21.
2 Opened for signature December 1, 1959, 402 UNTS 71 (entered into force 23 June 1961).
3 Vogler, The Global Commons, 8; Buck, The Global Commons, 6.
4 According to Article 1 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, “‘Antarctic Treaty system’ means the Antarctic Treaty, the measures in effect under that Treaty, its associated separate international instruments in force and the measures in effect under those instruments.”
5 Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, “Antarctic Treaty Parties.”
6 Opened for signature October 4, 1991, 30 ILM 1455 (entered into force 14 January 1998).
7 Dodds, “Sovereignty Watch.”
8 UNDP, Human Development Report 2013, 156–159.
9 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/2, United Nations Millennium Declaration, 2.
10 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 65/1, Keeping The Promise: United To Achieve The Millennium Development Goals, 1.
11 Chaturvedi, The Polar Regions.
12 Grob, “Antarctica’s Frozen Territorial Claims,” 466–467.
13 Dodds, The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction, 55.
14 Elzinga, “Rallying Around a Flag?” 197.
15 Scott, “Ingenious and Innocuous?” 58.
16 Elzinga, “Rallying Around a Flag?” 197.
17 Bulkeley, “The Political Origins of the Antarctic Treaty,” 9.
18 Beck, The International Politics of Antarctica, 272–273.
19 Triggs, “The United Nations in Antarctica?” 229.
20 Beck, The International Politics of Antarctica, 183–184.
21 Beck, The International Politics of Antarctica, 183–206; Triggs, “The United Nations in Antarctica?” 230–233.
22 This occurred under United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/47.
23 IAATO, “2012–2013 Tourists by Nationality: Landed.”
24 Pew Charitable Trusts, “Environmental Initiatives: Global Campaign to End Illegal Fishing.” This is supported in the Antarctic context by the Fishery Resources Monitoring System (FIRMS) used by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. According to FIRMS, reporting on just one species of fish (the Antarctic toothfish), in the Southern Ocean “In the 1990s and early 2000s, IUU fishing took large unreported quantities of toothfish. These unreported catches may have exceeded the reported catch by five to six times”. FAO, “Review of the State of World Marine Fishery Resources: Marine Resources – Southern Ocean, 2009.”
25 Hemmings, “Globalisation’s Cold Genius and the Ending of Antarctic Isolation,” 185.
26 Verbitsky, “Antarctic Tourism Management and Regulation.”
27 Hemmings, “Globalisation’s Cold Genius,” 189.
28 Rothwell and Scott, “Flexing Australian Sovereignty in Antarctica,” 13–16; Rayfuse, “Warm Waters and Cold Shoulders.”
29 Hemmings, “Globalisation’s Cold Genius,” 181.
30 Jabour, “Biological Prospecting in the Antarctic,” 242.
31 Lubchenko, “Entering the Century of the Environment,” 491.
32 McGrew, “Globalization and Global Politics,” 31.
33 Heywood, Global Politics, 320.
34 Archibugi,“Demos and Cosmopolis,” 261.
35 Held, “Democracy and Globalization,” 22.
36 Linklater, “Globalization and the Transformation,” 55.
37 Held, “Reframing Global Governance,” 248.
38 Linklater, “Citizenship and Sovereignty,” 114.
39 Held, “Democracy and Globalization,” 24.
40 Held, “Reframing Global Governance,” 254.
41 Held, “Reframing Global Governance,” 254–255.
42 Archibugi, “Cosmopolitan democracy: A Restatement,” 3.
43 Archibugi, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens, 5.
44 Agyeman & Warner, “Putting ‘Just Sustainability’ into Place,” 10.
45 Agyeman, “Toward a ‘Just’ Sustainability?” 752.
46 World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, 43.
47 Agyeman, “Toward a ‘Just’ Sustainability?” 752.
48 Clarke & Agyeman, “Shifting the Balance,” 1777.
49 Schlosberg, “Reconceiving Environmental Justice,” 518.
50 Schlosberg, “Reconceiving Environmental Justice,” 536–537.
51 Schlosberg, “Reconceiving Environmental Justice,” 519.
52 Schlosberg & Carruthers, “Indigenous Struggles, Environmental Justice,” 15.
53 Sen, Development as Freedom.
54 Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach.
55 That there are unmet leadership aspirations, a sense of “outsider” community among a number of non-western emerging and developing Antarctic Treaty signatory states, and desire for a distinctive regional voice in Antarctic matters that cannot be met within the ATS is evident from the formation of the Asian Forum for Polar Sciences in 2004 (chaired currently by Malaysia). Additionally, Brady notes ongoing criticism by Chinese, Indian and Malaysian scholars of the Antarctic “rich man’s club” and perception of marginalized, or “second class citizen” status of states outside this grouping. She notes, too, that other previously vocal critics, such as Indonesia, Nigeria and Kenya, have effectively found it too difficult to battle against the ATS decision-makers for reform and have given up in frustration – they “long ago fell silent, giving up to the realities of the difficulty of changing the current order”. Brady, “Opinion: Democratizing Antarctic Governance,” 451–452, 458.