Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T23:53:47.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Sovereignty watch: claimant states, resources, and territory in contemporary Antarctica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2010

Klaus J. Dodds*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX (k.dodds@rhul.ac.uk)

Abstract

This article is concerned with the contemporary Antarctic and the kinds of sovereignty performances undertaken by claimant states such as Australia. Notwithstanding the entry into force of the Antarctic Treaty, claimant states have used, what this article terms, ‘treaty sovereignty’ further to entrench their sovereign rights, especially within public culture. Using Australia as a detailed example, the article considers how a range of activities including anti-whaling developments alongside contemporary public commentary has on the one hand stressed ‘sovereign rights’ and yet on the other hand, revealed a sense of anxiety and fear regarding the role of others; what one might term overall a form of ‘sovereignty watch’. In conclusion, the paper speculates on whether the treaty parties are entering an unstable phase of Antarctic co-existence precisely because of the kinds of behaviours that ‘treaty sovereignty’ encourages.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ABC News. 2009a. What lies beneath? 3 March 2009. URL: http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2506516.htm.Google Scholar
ABC News. 2009b. Budget funding to break Antarctic policy freeze. 22 May 2009. URL: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/22/2577983.htm.Google Scholar
Ainley, D. 2009. A history of the exploitation of the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Polar Record 46 (238): 233243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antarctic Treaty. 1959. Adopted 1 December 1959. 402U.N.T.S.; entered into force 23 June 1961. URL: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_antarctica/geopolitical/treaty/update_1959.php.Google Scholar
Argentina. 2009a. Argentine science in Antarctica: scientific strategy. Buenos Aires: Dirección Nacional del Antártico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Internacional. URL: http://www.dna.gov.ar/INGLES/CIENCIA/ECIENT.PDFGoogle Scholar
Argentina 2009b. Argentine submission to CLCS. New York: UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental shelf. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/submission_arg.htm.Google Scholar
Argentina. 2010. 2010 scientific, technical and services Antarctic annual plan. URL: http://www.dna.gov.ar/INGLES/DIVULGAC/PAA0910.PDFGoogle Scholar
ATCM (Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting). 2009. Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting 32, Washington. Ministerial declaration on the fiftieth anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty, Washington DC 6 April 2009. URL: http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/other/2009/121340.htmGoogle Scholar
Australia. 2007. Department of the Environment and Water Resources annual report 2006–07. Canberra: Australian Government. URL: http://www.environment.gov.au/about/publications/annual-report/06-07/outcome1-coasts.html.Google Scholar
Australia. 2008. UN confirms Australia extended marine jurisdiction. URL: http://www.ga.gov.au/news/archive/2008/april/Google Scholar
Australian. 2009. Submission to the CLCS New York: UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/submission_aus.htm.Google Scholar
BBC News. 2008. Australia extends rights over the sea. 21 April 2008. URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7358432.stmGoogle Scholar
Bergin, A., and Haward, M.. 2007. Frozen Assets? Securing Australia's Antarctic future. Barton, Australian Capital Territory: Australian Strategic Policy Initiative (Australian Strategic Policy Institute discussion paper 34).Google Scholar
Billig, M. 1995. Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Brady, A-M. 2010. New Zealand's strategic interests in Antarctica. Polar Record doi:10.1017/S0032247410000148CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnett, G. 2000. Masters of all they surveyed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clinton, H. 2009. Remarks at the joint session of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council, 50th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 6th April 2009. URL: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/04/121314.htmGoogle Scholar
Collis, C. 2004. Australia's Antarctic turf. M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture 7. URL: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0403/02-feature-australia.phpCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collis, C. 2009. The Australian Antarctic Territory: a man's world? Signs 34: 514518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 1997. Geopolitics in Antarctica. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Dodds, K. 2002. Pink ice: Britain and the South Atlantic empire. London: I B Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 2006. Postcolonial Antarctica: an emerging engagement. Polar Record 42: 5970CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 2009. Settling and unsettling Antarctica. Signs 34: 505508CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 2010a. Gesture and posture: pointing the finger and the mapping of outer continental shelves. Polar Record 46 (238): 282284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 2010b. Flag planting and finger pointing: the law of the sea, the Arctic and the political geographies of the outer continental shelf. Political Geography 29: 6373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K., and Hemmings, A.. 2009. Frontier vigilantism: Australia and contemporary representations of Australian Antarctic Territory. Australian Journal of Politics and History 55: 513529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edney, M. 1997. Mapping an empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elden, S. 2009. Terror and territory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Entman, R. 1993. Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43: 5158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escude, C. 1988. Argentine territorial nationalism’. Journal of Latin American Studies 20: 139165CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escude, C. 1992. Education, political culture, and foreign policy: the Case of Argentina. Durham NC: Duke-University of North Carolina (Duke-UNC working paper series)Google Scholar
France. 2009. Submission to the CLCS. New York: UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/submission_fra_40_2009.htmGoogle Scholar
Garrett, P. 2010. Second reading speech in Australian Parliament – Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010. Canberra: Australian Parliament. URL: http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/garrett/2010/sp20100210.htmlGoogle Scholar
Giroux, H. 2007. The university in chains. New York: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
Griffiths, T. 2007. Slicing through the silence: voyaging to Antarctica. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haines, B. 2002. The ice and the inland: Mawson, Flynn, and the myth of the frontier. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Harley, B. 1992. Deconstructing the map. In: Barnes, T., and Duncan, J. (editors). Writing worlds. London: Routledge, 231247Google Scholar
Haward, M. 2007. Australia. In: Galligan, B., and Roberts, W. (editors). The Oxford companion to Australian politics. Melbourne: Oxford University Press: 3436Google Scholar
Hemmings, A., and Stephens, T.. 2009. Reconciling regional and global dispensations: the Implications of sub-Antarctic extended continental shelf penetration of the Antarctic Treaty area. New Zealand Yearbook of International Law 6: 273291.Google Scholar
Hemmings, A., and Stephens, T.. 2010. The extended continental shelves of sub-Antarctic Islands: implications for Antarctic governance. Polar Record doi:10.1017/S0032247409990532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ICJ (International Court of Justice). 2010. Australia institutes proceedings against Japan for alleged breach of international obligations concerning whaling, 1 June 2010 press release. URL: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/148/15953.pdfGoogle Scholar
Jabour, J. 2009. The Australian continental shelf: has Australia's high latitude diplomacy paid off. Marine Policy 33: 429431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koivurova, T. 2009. Do the continental shelf developments challenge the polar regimes? In: Alfredsson, G., and Koivurova, T (editors). The yearbook of polar law. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers: 477498.Google Scholar
Kriwoken, L., Jabour, J., and Hemmings, A. (editors). 2007. Looking south: Australia's Antarctic agenda. Sydney: Federation Press.Google Scholar
McCannon, J. 1998. Red Arctic: polar exploration and the myth of the north in the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moisi, D. 2009. The geopolitics of emotion. London: Bodley Head.Google Scholar
New Zealand. 2006. Submission to the CLCS. New York: UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/submission_nzl.htmGoogle Scholar
New Zealand Geographic Board. 2010. About the New Zealand Geographic Board’. URL: http://www.linz.govt.nz/placenames/about-geographic-board/index.aspxGoogle Scholar
Norway. 2006. Submission to the CLCS. New York: UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/submission_nor.htmGoogle Scholar
Raj, K. 2007. Relocating modern science. New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosner, V. 2009. Gender and polar studies: mapping the terrain. Signs 34: 489493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothwell, D., Hemmings, A., Kaye, S., Mossop, J., Stephens, T., and Triggs, G.. 2009. Japan's scientific whaling program and the Antarctic Treaty System. Independent panel of legal and policy experts. Report of the Canberra panel. URL: http://www.ifaw.org/assets/Media_Center/Press_Releases/asset_upload_file187_51771.pdfGoogle Scholar
Rothwell, D. 2010. Sovereignty and the Antarctic Treaty. Polar Record 46 (236): 1720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, E. 1978. Orientalism Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Serdy, A. 2009. Reactions and over-reactions to the Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. In Alfredsson, G., and Koivurova, T (editors). The yearbook of polar law. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers: 499510.Google Scholar
Scott, J. 1999. Seeing like a state. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Stokke, O., and Vidas, D. (editors). 1996. Governing the Antarctic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sydney Morning Herald. 2010. Chinese resources chief eyes Antarctica minerals. 7 January 2010. URL: http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-resources-chief-eyes-antarcticaminerals-20100106-luel.htmlGoogle Scholar
Thrift, N. 2000. It's the little things. In: Dodds, K., and Atkinson, D (editors). Geopolitical traditions. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
United Kingdom (2009) Submission to the CLCS. New York: UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/arg25_09/clcs_45_2009_los_gbr.pdfGoogle Scholar
United Nations. 1982. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted 10 December 1982, 1833 U.N.T.S. 396; entered into force 16 November 1994. URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part6.htmGoogle Scholar
Vidas, D. (editor). 2000. Implementing the environmental protection for the Antarctic. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar