why did we get an international space station before an international antarctic station?
TRANSCRIPT
The Polar JournalVol. 1, No. 1, June 2011ISSN 2154-896X (print)/ISSN 2154-8978 (online)© 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/2154896X.2011.569377http://www.informaworld.com
A.D. Hemmings
The Polar JournalVol. 1, No. 1, June 2011, 5–16
ISSN 2154-896X print/ISSN 2154-8978 online© 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/2154896X.2011.569377http://www.informaworld.com
Why did we get an International Space Station before an International Antarctic Station?Alan D. Hemmings*
Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Despite public projection of, and formal commitments in the Antarctic Treaty and subsequent instruments of the Antarctic Treaty System to, international sci-entific cooperation and the sharing of facilities, international stations are scarce. Of 110 current main facilities in the Antarctic Treaty area, only two are joint sta-tions, and both involve only two states. International scientific cooperation in Antarctica is well developed, but this appears not to ordinarily involve joint facilities. This seems anomalous considering potential advantages in scientific cooperation, associated logistic effort and cost, and lowered environmental footprint. Moreover, notwithstanding the manifest strategic /national security interests entailed in space capabilities, some of the same states engaged in Antarctica have managed to collaborate on an International Space Station. The critical factor appears to be the unresolved situation around territorial sover-eignty and consequential jurisdiction in Antarctica. So far as it relates to stations, scientific cooperation appears secondary to national autonomy in the selection of locations for other reasons.
Keywords: Antarctica; Antarctic Treaty System; international scientific cooperation; International Space Station
IntroductionThe Antarctic,1 and the Antarctic Treaty System2 that evolved to provide its core inter-national governance structure,3 are, amongst other things, celebrated for the centrality given therein to science and international cooperation around science. This sense of the special place of cooperative international science in the Antarctic is, moreover,
*Email: [email protected] Whilst Antarctica is often best delimited by the Polar Front or Antarctic Convergence, the sub-stantive area for consideration here is the area south of 60° South latitude, identified in Article VI of the Antarctic Treaty: opened for signature 1 December 1959, 402 UNTS 71 (entered into force 23 June 1961).2 Defined in Article 1 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty [Madrid Protocol], opened for signature 4 October 1991, 30 ILM 1455 (entered into force 14 January 1998): “‘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.” The separate international instruments in force are: the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Seals [CCAS], opened for signature 1 June 1972, 11 ILM 251 (entered into force 11 March 1978); Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, opened for signature 20 May 1980, 1329 UNTS 47 (entered into force 7 April 1982); and the Madrid Protocol.3 Hemmings, “Environmental Law – Antarctica,” 188.
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4 See for example “Science” at the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat website http://www.ats.aq/e/ats_science.htm 5 e.g. Lewis, A Continent for Science, or conduct a contemporary Google search for “continent for science”.6 See 2nd and 3rd recitals of Preamble, Article II, Article III, Article IX 1(c).7 See CCAMLR, Article XV; Madrid Protocol, Article 6. 8 See The website of the Antarctic Treaty secretariat, http://www.ats.aq/index_e.htm; ATCM “Revised Rules of Procedure (2008),” http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/att399_e.pdf; and “Revised Rules of Procedure for the Committee for Environmental Protection (2009),” http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/att418_e.pdf. 9 See Belanger Deep Freeze; Berguno and Elzinga ‘The Achievements of the IGY,” 259.10 Indeed this is explicitly recognised in the Antarctic Treaty at the 3rd recital of the Preamble and at Article II.11 Details at http://ipy.arcticportal.org/. 12 Article III 1(b).
held not just amongst Antarctic specialists and in Antarctic fora,4 but across the wider general public. Antarctica has been projected or framed, in the public domain, as a ‘Continent for Science’ from the inception of the ATS to the present day.5 The cen-trality of scientific cooperation in Antarctica is formally enshrined in the text of the foundational treaty, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty,6 and reflected in subsequent component treaties of the ATS,7 and in its institutional practices.8 That there has been international cooperation around the conduct of the scien-tific project in Antarctica is undisputed. Modern Antarctic science was essentially kick-started through the collaboratively international project of the International Geophysical Year,9 recognised as a significant stimulant of what became the Antarctic Treaty;10 and international cooperation in conceiving, planning, conduct-ing, working up and publishing Antarctic science continues to the present day. The recently concluded 4th International Polar Year demonstrates as much.11 Yet, curi-ously, more than 50 years on from the adoption of the Antarctic Treaty, in this legally complex (and thus necessarily most internationalised) part of the globe, we see no appreciable internationalisation of the fixed point scientific facilities in Antarctica – what we ordinarily understand as Antarctic stations. This seems, on the face of it, remarkable, since one might presume, ceteris paribus, that joint scien-tific facilities would be one of the most obvious, likely and logical consequence of this formal commitment to scientific cooperation. It might be supposed that long-standing scientific, logistic and economic rationales would have been reinforced in this respect by subsequent awareness of environmental sensitivities, and a resulting commitment to limit and manage the human footprint in the Antarctic Treaty Area. Indeed, in the Madrid Protocol, we find this. Article 6 on Cooperation mandates that “each Party shall endeavour to: … (e) where appropriate, undertake joint expedi-tions and share the use of stations and other facilities”. Plainly sharing the use of stations can mean many things short of a joint facility – from hosting individual scientists from another state at one’s station (the Antarctic Treaty mandated that “scientific personnel shall be exchanged in Antarctica between expeditions and stations”),12 to the hosting of a substantial piece of equipment or
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13 An arrangement further encouraged when The Netherlands became the first state to acquire Consultative Party status in November 1990 as “the first Treaty Party that does not operate its own research station. It has access to the necessary infrastructure through agreements with partner organizations” (The Netherlands’ Antarctic Activities in Brief, http://www.nwo.nl/files.nsf/pages/SPES_5VEFBU/$file/Antartic%20Activities.pdf). The Netherlands has recently made another agreement (with the United Kingdom) to install portable scientific laboratories at “Rothera” station (Ricardo Roura, pers. comm.7 March 2011). Germany has established “annexes” at two stations: the Dallman Laboratory at “Jubany” (Argentina) and a geodetic observatory at “O’Higgins” (Chile), see ASOC, “Are more Antarctic stations justified?,” Information Paper 94, XXVII Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Cape Town, 24 May – 4 June 2004.14 See “Main Antarctic Facilities operated by National Antarctic Programs in the Antarctic Treaty Area (South of 60° latitude South),” https://www.comnap.aq/facilities (accessed 14 February 2011).15 In relation to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, see inter alia, Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire.16 The German Forsters on Cook’s Second Expedition being perhaps the best known early example.17 The particular Australian national focus of BANZARE is revealed in Price The Winning of Australian Antarctica.18 Giaever The White Desert.
research facility at the station.13 And, one notes that whereas Article 6(e) refers to “joint expeditions”, it does not deploy this term in relation to stations and other facilities. But, over a period of half a century it is surely not unreasonable to expect that (par-ticularly given the high costs, logistic complexity and inherent international flavour of modern science in Antarctica) at least some international joint facilities would have arisen. Yet in fact there are currently just two “joint” stations amongst the total of 110 “Main Antarctic Facilities” identified by the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP).14 These are “Concordia”, operated by France and Italy, amongst the currently 40 year-round stations and “Law-Racovita”, operated by Australia and Romania amongst the 70 other seasonal and/or presently closed facilities within the Antarctic Treaty Area. This article examines this situation in light of the operational history and inter-national legal commitments around scientific cooperation in Antarctica. It seeks to disaggregate the various facets of Antarctic scientific cooperation from the wider con-siderations determining the pattern of national Antarctic stations. By way of a seeming analogue, it also asks why we seem to have managed to achieve an International Space Station before we have achieved an international Antarctic station.
Joint facilities prior to the adoption of the Antarctic TreatyScience followed the flag in late eighteenth-, through nineteenth- to early twentieth-century (Heroic era) exploration of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.15 But, these expeditions, whilst often carrying scientists from nations apart from the organising or flag state,16 were essentially the national project of a single state. Imperial polar expe-ditions, most obviously the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) of 1929–31, were variations on this theme and not multina-tional in the contemporary sense.17
Deliberate multinational science projects centred on a single shared facility only appear post World War II with the glaciologically-focused Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1949–52, with its dedicated station of “Maudheim” in Queen Maud Land.18 George Fogg, in his celebrated history of Antarctic science regarded it
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19 Fogg, A History of Antarctic Science, 168.20 Although it is the technological modus operandi, rather than joint facilities per se that later commentators have noted – see Fogg, History of Antarctic Science; Belanger, Deep Freeze, 2.21 Quartermain, New Zealand and the Antarctic, 90.22 For history see New Zealand, Initial Environmental.23 Belanger, Deep Freeze, 187.24 Bowden, The Silence Calling, 190.
as “the first large-scale international expedition ever to be organised”.19 Interestingly, whilst the Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition in some sense provides the model for international scientific cooperation during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–58,20 even IGY did not establish a lasting legacy of shared Antarctic stations. Although the IGY saw many national stations hosting foreign scientists, only one multinational station was established, the joint United States/New Zealand Hallett Station on the Victoria Land coast of the Ross Sea. Built by the US, it was oper-ated jointly as a year-round station from 1956/7–1964, then as a summer-only facility until its abandonment in 1973. According to New Zealand’s premier early Antarctic chronicler, “one of the finest features of the IGY was the establishment of the only Antarctic IGY station which was essentially a cooperative enterprise”.21 Subsequent station removal and site rehabilitation has seen pioneering collaborative application of modern Antarctic environmental management approaches by the two states.22
Hallett was one of three stations (the others being Wilkes and Ellsworth) agreed as necessary quite late in IPY preparations, in order to fill apparent gaps in scientific coverage, although as Dian Olson notes, “political considerations did not escape orga-nizers’ minds”.23 The three “gaps” were (perhaps conveniently?) located in the New Zealand, Australian and United Kingdom/Argentine/Chilean claimed sectors respec-tively. The United States was the principal in each case. Whilst Wilkes and Ellsworth were operated as US stations through IGY, by early 1958 the US had approached Australia with a view to shared operation of Wilkes. Reviewing this proposal, Arthur Tange, head of the Australian Department of External Affairs advised:
I would believe that it would not be practicable for us to share the operation of the Wilkes Station with the United States. The political future of the Antarctic is at present uncertain and probably will remain so for some months at least. I believe our best policy in the interim would be to continue to consolidate our sovereignty. Granted this, the opportunity of replacing the last United States base in our territory by an Australian base presents obvious political advantages. The advantage might be lost if we only partici-pated in the operation of what would still be a United States base.24
In the event, the US would not agree to a complete handover, and Wilkes was run as a joint US/Australian station from early 1959, before being leased to Australia as sole operator in 1961. Australia operated Wilkes until 1969, when it was replaced by the new, and Australian built, Casey station across the bay. Ellsworth only ever oper-ated as a US facility. So, essentially only three joint stations operated in Antarctica in the period prior to the adoption of the Antarctic Treaty: “Maudheim” for the duration of the 1949–52 Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition, “Hallett” (USA/New Zealand) during the IPY, and “Wilkes” (USA/Australia) in 1959 and 1960. The last two were initiated and built by the United States and it was plainly the senior partner, notwith-standing the joint operation with other states.
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25 Macowski in Auburn, Antarctic Law and Politics, 83.26 See British Research Stations and Refuges – History, http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/our_history/stations_and_refuges/index.php. The author became aware of this site via: ASOC, “Are more Antarctic stations justified?” Information Paper 94, XXVII Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, Cape Town, 24 May – 4 June 2004.27 See details of “Law Racovita Base” at http://www.antarctica.gov.au/antarctic-law-and-treaty/information-exchange/2007-2008/2.-annual-report-07-08/2.2.1a-summer. An Agreement was signed on 15 June 2005 between the Australian Antarctic Division and the Romanian Antarctic Foundation which allows that “the base remains Australian Government property, and under Australian control and management, but has been made available to the Foundation for carrying out research activities in the Larsemann Hills.” (Ewan McIvor, Australian Antarctic Division, pers. comm. 3 March 2011). The text of the Agreement is not publicly available.
Joint facilities since the adoption of the Antarctic TreatyEssentially no joint facilities survived into, or were generated during, the early years of the Antarctic Treaty. Beyond the reasonably widespread practice of exchange scientists, mandated by Article III 1(b) of the treaty (who remained subject to their own state’s jurisdiction under Article VIII 1), and some logistic cooperation, scientific cooperation in the early decades of the Antarctic Treaty was largely about discussion of research agenda and outcomes of research. Substantive cooperation in other words occurred largely outside the Antarctic. Whilst it may be invidious to compare the relationship between the Soviet Union and its satellites with the relationship between the United States and its allies in Antarctica, there are some apparent similarities. The Soviet Union transferred “Oazis” station to Poland in January 1959 (although Poland then closed it for 20 years before periodically using it as a summer facility under the name of “Dobrowolski” before closing it again).25 Whatever logistic dependence Poland may have had on the Soviet Union to reach the site, there is little basis for seeing this facility as in any way a joint operation. Similarly, although East German scientists were quite numerous on Soviet expeditions and at Soviet stations, this is really a variant on the exchange scientist pat-tern rather than a case of joint facilities. Both Poland and East Germany subsequently established their own stations. The United Kingdom has also been involved in station transfers. In 1984 it trans-ferred “Adelaide Island” to Chile, which has since operated it as “Teniente Carvajal”; in 1986 it transferred “View Point” to Chile, which it has since operated as “Canas Montalva”; and in February 1996 it transferred “Faraday”, which it had established in January 1947 (and was in turn a return to an area occupied by the inter-war British Graham Land Expedition), to Ukraine, which has since operated the station as “Vernadsky”.26 In each case the receiving state has since operated the station as its national facility. A less clear cut situation concerns the Brazilian station “Comandante Ferraz” opened in 1984 on the site of the former British Station “Admiralty Bay”. But again, the Brazilians have operated this facility as a solely national station since. A somewhat different situation obtains in relation to the station established in February 1986 and operated by Australia as “Law”. After almost 20 years’ operation as an Australian summer only facility, in 2005 “a 10 year Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Australia and Romania for joint use of this base” as “Law Racovita Base”.27 As “Law Racovita” this facility is one of only two within the Antarctic Treaty Area recognised as a “joint” facility, and identified as such in COMNAP data sets. Two possibilities present themselves, six years into this joint operation. The joint use may be continued through an extension to the existing Memorandum of Understanding, or
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28 A type of Environmental Impact Assessment. For explanation see Hemmings and Kriwoken, “High Level Antarctic EIA under the Madrid Protocol,” 187. 29 France, “Study of the environmental impact of the construction and operation of a scientific base at Dome C.”30 France and Italy, “Concordia Project” and France and Italy “Concordia Project: Drilling activity at Dome C, Antarctica.”31 See the Concordia Base website, http://www.concordiabase.eu/ Legal matters relating to the station are regulated by means of a contract of private law signed by the French and Italian research programs – pers. comm., Patrizia Vigni, 17 December 2010.32 See Prescott and Triggs, International Frontiers and Boundaries, 387.33 Treaty Concerning the Archipelago of Spitsbergen, opened for signature 9 February 1920, 2 LNTS 8 (entered into force 14 August 1925). On some of the implications for access and con-duct of scientific research see Ulfstein, The Svalbard Treaty: From Terra Nullius to Norwegian Sovereignty, 390.
a new agreement. Whilst theoretically there is a third option, of transferring the station to Romania, in the manner seen in relation to “Wilkes”, “Oazis”, “Faraday” and others, Australia appears not to be considering this. The present author’s view is that Romania is unlikely to have the resources to establish a station de novo in the near-term, and that Australia will likely be happy to continue joint operation, particularly given that this is a summer-only facility. The political context around such speculation is developed in more detail below. The Franco-Italian station of “Concordia” appears to have started from a French conception of the value of a new polar station. France submitted a draft Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation (CEE)28 for the station in 1992.29 However, following agree-ment between the national Antarctic programs of France (l’Institut polaire français Paul-Émile Victor) and Italy (Il Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide) in 1993, it became a joint project, with subsequent development, Final CEEs,30 realisa-tion and operation of “Concordia” involving both states.31 The station is located at ������ƍ�6���������ƍ�(��DSSUR[LPDWHO\�HTXLGLVWDQW��RYHU������NP�LQ�ERWK�FDVHV��IURP�the Italian station “Mario Zucchelli” and the French station “Dumont d’Urville”. Thus the station is located outside the French claimed territory of Terre Adélie, which is bounded by the meridians of 136° and 142° E.32 The possible political significance of this location is discussed further below. To conclude this section, it should be noted that there are now a small number of locations around the Antarctic Treaty Area where clusters of national facilities are located: McMurdo Sound (United States and New Zealand), Larsemann Hills (Australia/Romania, China, India, Russia), King George Island (15 facilities operated by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, South Korea, Peru, Poland, Russia). Notwithstanding that the individual facilities remain nationally operated, there are often shared logistics arrangements (on King George Island the Chilean built and oper-ated airstrip is used by many other national programs) and easier opportunities for joint or collaborative research. These clusters might be viewed as de facto or emergent international research campuses. This is, perhaps, comparable to the situation in the high Arctic on Spitsbergen at Longyearbyen and, particularly, Ny-Ålesund. This archi-pelago is of course subject to its own peculiar international circumstances, whereby Norwegian sovereignty operates alongside international agreed access and use rights subject to the 1920 Svalbard Treaty.33
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34 Jessup and Taubenfeld, Controls for Outer Space and the Antarctic Analogy.35 Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, 267.36 Moenter, “The International Space Station,” 1033.
The International Space StationThe International Space Station poses an interesting counterpoint to the quite lim-ited development of joint facilities in Antarctica, for a number of reasons. First, that space is recognised as not being nationally appropriable and is included in the limited number of spaces generally recognised as being part of the common heritage of man-kind – a standing sometimes argued to apply also to Antarctica. In fact no formal sanc-tion for recognising Antarctica as common heritage exists, and the existence of seven claims to parts of the continent argues strongly that at least these states believe it may be nationally appropriated. Others of course entirely reject these claims, and generally any national territorial claims to Antarctica. Whatever label one may or may not attach, Antarctica is, like space (and the high seas and the deep seabed) seen as a place where a degree of collective responsibility is necessary and desirable and where, accordingly, some constraints on national autonomy are inevitable. Space has, in these terms, some analogous features to Antarctica. To the extent then that joint research facilities have obviously become possible in space, it raises the question, “why not also in Antarctica?” The more so as Antarctica, and particularly the Antarctic Treaty, have been seen as providing templates for the subsequent development of international space law from the time of the negotiation of the Antarctic Treaty,34 with familiar Antarctic formulations carried over into these treaties.35
Second, if one suspects that geopolitical/strategic national interests – and thus at the extreme, national security interests – figure in the Antarctic calculus about Antarctic stations (below), one might enquire how the high level national security interests inherent in space technology have been squared with joint access and use. The International Space Station was, after all, rooted in a presidential announcement at the height of the second Cold War in 1984.36 Although the other parties that President Reagan invited to join the United States in this high frontier project were its traditional western allies, presumably there were still commercial and security sensitivities to overcome. Subsequently Russia joined as a principal. Finally, quite straightforward questions of cost, logistics and capacity present themselves as common to both space and Antarctica. For even the greatest powers these are not inconsiderable factors; for most states they are likely to be the rate limit-ing considerations. It is important here not to overwork the similarities between space and Antarctica. They remain quite different places, presenting quite different challenges, despite some seeming commonalities. The analogy is therefore used here only lightly, merely to bet-ter tease out some issues attaching to the Antarctic situation, which is the focus of this article. The many difficulties inherent in developing an International Space Station include some which appear also significant in Antarctica. In an area beyond conventional national jurisdiction, and with a still comparatively limited corpus of international law, how might issues around ownership and responsibility for equipment, and jurisdiction and control of personnel in the station, be arranged?
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37Agreement among the Government of Canada, Government of the Member States of the European Space Agency, the Government of Japan, the Government of the Russian Federation, and the Government of the United States of America Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station. Signed at Washington 29 January 1998. [United States] Treaties and Other International Acts Series 12927, http://www.spacelaw.olemiss.edu/library/space/International_Agreements/Mulilateral/ISS_IGA/1998%20%20Agreement%20Among%20Canada,%20ESA%20States,%20Japan,%20Russia,%20and%20the%20United.pdf38 Aust, Handbook of International Law, 369.
The agreement adopted by each of the principal participants in the International Space Station is a fairly conventional 28-article document.37 Article 5 addresses “Registration, Jurisdiction and Control” and requires that each partner state registers each of the flight elements (i.e., the main parts of the station) that it contributes, and that state thereafter retains jurisdiction and control over that part of the station. Partner states also retain jurisdiction and control over “personnel in or on the Space Station who are its nationals”. The latter corresponds to the state jurisdiction over exchanged scientific personnel and observers provided under Article VIII 1 of the Antarctic Treaty. Under Article 6 of the International Space Station Agreement, the partner states also own the elements that they have provided, and which are identified in an Annex to the Agreement, “Space Station Elements to be Provided by the Partners.” Intellectual property is addressed under Article 21, which deems at paragraph 2 the activity “to have occurred only in the territory of the Partner State of that element’s registry” (aside from European Space Agency registered elements where any European state may deem it to have taken place in its territory). One of the most problematical issues in space, as in the Antarctic, may be the ques-tion of criminal jurisdiction. Article 22 of the Agreement allows Partner States crimi-nal jurisdiction over any personnel who are their nationals. It also specifies that whilst in orbit, following an incident the Partner State whose national is the alleged perpe-trator shall consult with the Partner State whose flight element is affected about their relative “prosecutorial interests”. Although crimes against the person are not explicitly referred to, the standing given to the Partner State whose flight element is either the object of the incident or the location of the incident, suggests that the coverage is broad. Extradition is explicitly considered at paragraph 3. Anthony Aust (for many years the United Kingdom’s lawyer on Antarctic delegations) has described the provi-sions of Articles 21 and 22 as “particularly interesting”.38 Nothing comparable is yet evident in Antarctica, where criminal jurisdiction in an international incident remains the beast that dare not speak its name.
Why did we get an International Space Station before we got an International Antarctic Station?The first observation to make is that there is a very limited case history of joint Antarctic stations, both pre- and post-Antarctic Treaty, and drawing general lessons from this is difficult. But, it has involved essentially bilateral arrangements between states (“Maudheim” involved three states) rather than any multilateral arrangements as we would currently understand that term. The bilateral arrangements have, unsur-prisingly, been arrived at bilaterally; there is no evidence of a process mediated by the Antarctic Treaty System or para-Antarctic institutions such as SCAR or COMNAP. In only two instances (“Maudheim” and “Concordia”) have the parties jointly developed
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the station from the start. The other cases have seen one party decide on the location and nature of the facility and then involve the other. These are quite different circum-stances from those that surrounded the initiation of the International Space Station. The restricted group of states invited by the United States to join it on this project may not be a large part of the international community, but they are a substantial body of states. Unless one does indeed see the station clustering noted above as the better analogue to the International Space Station, why have not even the most developed western states collaborated in creating common station facilities in Antarctica? Even the European Union, whose members now constitute the largest bloc with the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties, has not gone down the road of joint Antarctic facilities. The difficulty seems to be around the issue of territorial sovereignty in Antarctica. There we have, if you will, the worst of all possible worlds. Whereas nobody claims space, most of the Antarctic is claimed by somebody – and the Peninsula by three states. The part that is not claimed (the East Pacific sector) is the most difficult to penetrate, most remote, and historically has been seen as the least interesting part. Thus, just about anywhere one wishes to place a station is considered by somebody to be “theirs”. The general non-recognition of claims and the art of Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty frees individual states up to locate their stations where they will. But this still leaves states negotiating amongst themselves for locations that they can reach from countries surrounding Antarctica, which are with the exception of South Africa all claimants. The largest states still have no need for partners, and to the extent that their own Antarctic presence reflects their longer-term geopolitical interests, may be disinclined to complicate things by joining in joint facilities – which they may very well have to lead anyway. For claimants the idea of joint facilities may appear par-ticularly disagreeable for two slightly different reasons. In the first instance because all the claimants focus their attention (and their facilities) in “their” sector. If one assumes that they may continue to prefer activity in that sector, then internationalis-ing one of their existing stations, or participating in the creation of a new joint station, involves a potential zero-sum game in terms of relative influence and profile within “their territory”. In parallel, if one looks back across the functioning of the Antarctic Treaty System for the past 50 years, one sees a tension for claimants between the reinforcement of the system (of which they are all supportive) and a diminution of their autonomy and standing as claimants through too great an internationalisation of Antarctic institutions. On this view, a transition from an Antarctic world of national Antarctic programs to one of a more integrated trans-national science, with a corresponding multilateral infrastructure, may be the harbinger of a new dispensation less amenable to territo-rial aspirations there. Having visitors is an altogether different proposition to adding their names to the deeds of the property, let alone pulling yours down and inviting colleagues to join you in building and running a new facility, particularly if you believe you still own the land. Are there counter-arguments that need to be conceded? Yes, since claimants (or at least some claimants) have been disproportionately involved in the instances of joint facilities canvassed here. Australia, France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (four of the seven claimants) have participated in joint facilities. The United Kingdom has also transferred two former stations to Chile, one of two states contesting British territorial sovereignty in the Antarctic Peninsula. But without, one hopes, engaging in a sleight of hand, unpacking their actual participation in joint facilities may bolster
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39 Which is the commitment in relation to building a network of Antarctic Specially Protected Areas under Article 3 of Annex V to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty: opened for signature 4 October 1991, 30 ILM 1455 (entered into force 14 January 1998).
rather than undermine the argument that territorial interests are at the heart of the mat-ter. As the discussion of the IPY-era stations reveals, the United States itself was in part looking to counter claimant pretensions (as it sees them) by its placement of the “gap” stations. The claimants were between a rock and a hard place here. Ultimately they were not the determinants of these stations’ existence, and as Tange’s remarks show, not awfully keen on them. In the case of the current joint use of “Law Racovita”, Australia’s ongoing engage-ment alongside Romania eases the problems. Australia has certainly not “given up” the facility since it retains ownership, control and management. The station is only used during the summer anyway, and its strategic importance as a balance to the nearby Russian and Chinese (and more recently Indian) stations may now be greater than its particular scientific value, given other access options. The option of doing a “Faraday” and entirely transferring the station to Romania is still open to it, but as noted above that does not appear to be the Australian intention. “Law-Racovita” is, on these terms, a variant on the model of a national station hosting facilities and/or personnel from another state as much as a “joint” facility. The Franco-Italian “Concordia”, the most “joint” major Antarctic facility to date, is not located within the French claimed sector (it is within the so-called “Australian Antarctic Territory” – was Australia ever invited to join the project?), and so entirely avoids the mooted zero-sum argument mounted above. It involves collaboration between two close European states, whose EU experience may ease concerns; and in France it anyway involves the claimant with the smallest claim, and frankly the most relaxed approach to territorial prerogatives. None of this is conclusive, but, barring the presently unlikely access to state documents disclosing national approaches to territo-rial sovereignty, inference may be as much as is possible right now. None of this is to imply that states are not committed to international scientific cooperation in Antarctica. It would be a stupid simplification to imply that unless states were agreed to the replacement of the present scattering of nationally run Antarctic stations with a scientifically planned (perhaps “within a systematic environmental-geographical framework”)39 and internationally shared set of joint facilities, they were repudiating international scientific cooperation in Antarctica. The question is about the relative balance here between national geopolitical interests and objective support for the scientific cooperation rationales of the Antarctic Treaty System. Hitherto, station placement has been largely about meeting national objectives in terms of projecting influence that will safeguard territorial options (in the case of claimants, and in the case of “semi-claimants” such as Russia and the United States), preserve maximum flexibility in terms of exercising influence within the Antarctic treaty System (claim-ants and non-claimants), and being realistic about accessibility and national logistics and resource capabilities (which is why an awful lot of states have stations on King George Island). Scientific cooperation is laid on top of these prime determinants, and collaborative projects (and ultimately commitments such as sharing existing facilities or building new joint facilities) on top of that. Are there scenarios where one might see the appearance of truly jointly oper-ated Antarctic facilities? In the near-term, by which is anticipated the next decade or so, two scenarios present themselves as possibilities: the establishment of a large
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astronomical facility (a radio or optical telescope) and/or a major European Union initiative in Antarctica. The first would present its proponents with a formidable cost and logistic complexity in a discipline where multinational facilities are now the norm. Although a few states could support such a facility within their own resources, a multi-national project seems altogether more likely. The second scenario would be a product of the now familiar development of pan-European institutions under the umbrella of the European Union. As European research is increasingly organised across the Union, Antarctica and other international areas will surely follow. The European party to the International Space Station is, after all, the European Space Agency. The difficulties to be overcome here are two-fold: first the possible resistance of the two EU members (France and the United Kingdom) who presently have autonomy in relation to their Southern Hemisphere possessions; and the structural impediment that as presently drafted, the Antarctic Treaty cannot admit entities apart from states. One presumes that both difficulties will be overtaken by geopolitical realities, and addressed. For the wider Antarctic community, it will be a while yet before stations are con-structed by groups of states. The claimant positions seem unlikely to be abandoned in the near-term, and if the thesis as advanced here is correct that means that at least some of those states (perhaps not France and the United Kingdom) will resist interna-tionalisation of facilities to some extent. Potentially they might be drawn in through a major piece of infrastructure such as a telescope. Some of the more recent participants in the Antarctic Treaty System are states previously under the thumb of great powers, for whom the Antarctic engagement is in part an expression of newly possible national autonomy and global citizenship. Whether such states will be anxious to submerge their identities in grand designs wherein they may appear as only bit players is an open question. Finally the question arises whether the international scientific program in Antarctica will continue to need major fixed-point facilities, whether nationally or jointly operated. But for the immediate future, the likely normal Antarctic scientific research station will continue to be built and run by a particular state. Consistent with the Madrid Protocol’s Article 6, national stations will continue to welcome other states’ scientists and “where appropriate, undertake joint expeditions and share the use of stations and other facilities”.
AcknowledgementsI extend my thanks to Michelle Rogan-Finnemore, Executive Secretary for the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) in Christchurch, Patrizia Vigni at the University of Siena, Francesco Francioni at the European University Institute in Florence, Richard Rowe at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra, and Ewan McIvor at the Australian Antarctic Division in Kingston for their assistance regarding particular stations and legal arrangements. Rupert Summerson and Ricardo Roura made helpful suggestions in relation to an earlier draft of the article, and the latter provided details of facili-ties located at other states’ stations. Of course none of these people should be implicated in any errors or interpretations found in the present article.
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