Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1964 Agreed Measures for the Conservation for Flora and Fauna (AMCFF)
1972 Convention for the Conservation of the Antarctic Seals (CCAS)
1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)
1988 Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA)
1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Protocol)
Taken together, as
Chapter 6
explores in more detail, they sought to address the leading
resource and environmental protection issues confronting the Antarctic, and, in so doing,
widened and deepened the institutional architecture of the ATS. Moreover, by building the
'environmental authority' of the ATS, it contributed to the sedimentation of power relations
- a select membership of the international community negotiating the present and future
states of Antarctica.
Second, for many years, the ATCP did not agree on whether the Antarctic Treaty needed
a permanent secretariat, as part of its institutional development. The Antarctic Treaty was,
for most of the original participants, intended to be a forum for intergovernmental inter-
action. In essence, the meetings of the ATCP occurred, initially every two years, and then
shifted to every year as the business to be discussed expanded in the 1970s onwards. Each
ATCP took it in turn to host a meeting and to organize in effect a temporary secretariat to
support the event in question. Other states provided
ad hoc
secretarial support. Argentina,
Australia, and Chile, three of the more boisterous claimant states, were widely known to
be hostile to the idea of a permanent secretariat during the 1959 negotiations. So a minim-
alist approach was adopted towards the question of institutional development. The annu-
al meetings were intended to provide a forum for information exchange and discussion of
decisions, measures, and recommendations. Topics of interest included jurisdictional ques-
tions, scientific cooperation, inspection, and research, alongside the conservation and pre-
servation of Antarctic livingem; text-align: center; } .roould be resources. Supporting the
ATCPs during these meetings, in particular, was the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Re-
search (SCAR), which over the decades has developed a close relationship to the parties in
question, providing scientific advice.
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)
