Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
dren in three different countries were learning that the Antarctic was part of their national
experience, either as integral territory or as a staging ground for national interests and val-
ues.
Frustrated by this continuing and expensive 'Antarctic Problem', the United Kingdom sub-
mitted an application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in May 1955 asking 'the
Court to recognise the validity of its titles to sovereignty and to declare that the preten-
tions of Argentina and Chile, as well as their encroachments in those territories, are con-
trary to international law'. The territories in this case referred to all British territories south
of 50th parallel of south latitude. The application never attracted the involvement of the
counter-claimants because both reject sea ice extenten Peninsulaed the need to have their
'claims' tested by an international court. If they had participated, then they would have
been obliged to abide by any ICJ judgment. With no judgment, the 'Antarctic Problem'
persisted, with all three countries devoting resources to the protection, and indeed enhance-
ment, of their respective territories. Argentina, in particular, was a polar superpower dis-
patching icebreakers, planes, and personnel to the Antarctic Peninsula. Argentine officials
took great pleasure in sending updated maps of the Argentine Antarctic Territory to British
administrators which highlighted their surveying achievements. The ICJ application was
only one element in the contested sovereignty of the Antarctic. The United States, having
renewed its Antarctic commitments and interests in the late 1940s, assembled a decisive
presence. On the back of a new generation of US Navy-led expeditions, State Department
officials explored governance options with the polar G7 (the claimant states). Given the
intra-gang rivalries, any proposal to alter the
status quo
was likely to encounter hostility at
worst and indifference at best.
Mindful of the potential to make a substantial claim to the Antarctic, a proposal for a con-
dominium was carefully considered by the claimants in 1948. Within such a condominium,
the United States hoped to achieve three things. First, to ensure that its rights and interests
were preserved across the entire polar continent as well as protecting navigation rights/
rights of innocent passage around the Southern Ocean. Second, successive US governments
were concerned about the unresolved tension between Britain, Argentina, and Chile. From
the US perspective, three Cold War allies locked into an increasingly bitter dispute over
ownership with no sign that any of those parties were willing to 'pull out' of the Antarctic
made no sense. Finally, it was hoped that other parties, especially the Soviet Union, might
be discouraged from playing a more prominent role in the Antarctic if affairs of state ap-
peared benign. In other words, the US was prepared to deal with the seven claimants in the
hope that they could shut down the Antarctic politically.
