Abstract
A transformative series of events in the Antarctic Treaty’s third decade saw perceptions of Antarctica shift from one of potential mineral resource value to a focus on environmental protection. After years of discussion and formal negotiation, an international convention to regulate Antarctic mineral resource activities was adopted despite there being no known economic minerals. Two years later, this was replaced by an environmental regime which prohibited mining and made all Antarctic activities subject to environmental assessment. The question of who had been responsible for this turn of events became a contested space, including in the legacies of former Australian prime ministers. The book suggests that there is more to the story than existing accounts have revealed and sets out to identify those responsible. This chapter introduces the topic and describes how archival records of government can provide insight into the conduct of Antarctic diplomacy and the inner workings of the Antarctic Treaty System’s search for consensus. It shows the potential and limits of diplomatic history, and introduces the analytical tools which can be used to make sense of what occurred.
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Notes
- 1.
13 June 2019, Sophie Taylor-Price, memorial service for the late Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia (broadcast on ABC TV, starting at approx. 1:23).
- 2.
17 May 2019, Michelle Grattan “The golden bowl is broken—tributes to the nation’s loved larrikin leader” https://theconversation.com/the-golden-bowl-is-broken-tributes-to-the-nations-loved-larrikin-leader-117281 (accessed 3 February 2021). 24 May 2019, interview with Leigh Sales “Blanch d’Alpuget on the late Bob Hawke” ABC TV 7:30.
- 3.
1 January 2015, Troy Bramston “Cabinet papers 1988–1989: Hot under collar at who saved Antarctica” The Australian. Debate about the Hawke and Keating legacies is covered in: Troy Bramston, Paul Keating: The Big Picture Leader (Scribe, 2016). Bob Hawke and Derek Rielly, Wednesdays with Bob (Macmillan, 2017). Blanche d’Alpuget, Bob Hawke: The Complete Biography (Simon & Schuster, 2019).
- 4.
“Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities,” https://documents.ats.aq/recatt/Att311_e.pdf. (accessed 26 March 2020).
- 5.
Neal Potter, “Economic Potentials of the Antarctic,” Antarctic Journal of the United States 4, no. 3 (1969). The absence of economic resources was regularly pointed out by John Behrendt between 1981 and 1991, for example: John C. Behrendt, “Geophysical and Geological Studies Relevant to Assessment of the Petroleum Resources of Antarctica,” in Antarctic Earth Science, ed. R. L. Oliver, P. R. James, and J. B. Jago (Australian Academy of Science, 1983). In this book, resources are only ‘economic’ if they provide a return in a commercial market able to operate freely.
- 6.
22 May 1989, Prime Minister “Protection of the Antarctic environment” http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00007607.pdf (accessed 3 February 2021).
- 7.
“Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty,” https://documents.ats.aq/keydocs/vol_1/vol1_4_AT_Protocol_on_EP_e.pdf. (accessed 26 March 2020).
- 8.
Christopher C. Joyner, Governing the Frozen Commons (University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 178–80.
- 9.
Brian Roberts, “International Co-operation for Antarctic Development: The Test for the Antarctic Treaty,” Polar Record 19, no. 119 (1978): 119.
- 10.
Arild Underdal, “One Question, Two Answers,” in Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence, ed. Edward L. Miles, and others (MIT, 2002), 25.
- 11.
In ATS forums, consensus is taken to mean the absence of formal objection, rather than positive consent—a crucial difference. Erik Jaap Molenaar, “CCAMLR and Southern Ocean Fisheries,” International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 16, no. 3 (2001): 470. Andrew Jackson, “Politics, Diplomacy and the Creation of Antarctic Consensus,” Yearbook of Polar Law 9 (2018).
- 12.
Stuart Kaye, Michael Johnson, and Rachel Baird, “Law,” in Australia and the Antarctic Treaty System: 50 Years of Influence, ed. Marcus Haward and Tom Griffiths (UNSW Press, 2011), 101–02.
- 13.
Harlan K. Cohen, Handbook of the Antarctic Treaty System, 9th ed., 2 vols. (US Department of State, 2002), 434.
- 14.
Ibid., 384–436.
- 15.
Ibid., 18–36 and 471–75.
- 16.
See, for example: Olav Schram Stokke and Davor Vidas, eds., Governing the Antarctic (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 162–65. Sanjay Chaturvedi, The Polar Regions (Wiley, 1996), 125–26.
- 17.
30 May 2016, ATCM39 AD010 (25th Anniversary Symposium) Evan T. Bloom “Remarks on the history, vision behind and impact of the protocol on environmental protection” https://documents.ats.aq/ATCM39/ad/ATCM39_ad010_e.pdf (accessed 26 March 2020).
- 18.
See, for example, Andrew Jackson and Peter Boyce, “Mining and ‘World Park Antarctica’,” in Australia and the Antarctic Treaty System: 50 Years of Influence, ed. Marcus Haward and Tom Griffiths (UNSW Press, 2011), 251–52. Tim Bowden, The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947–1997 (Allen & Unwin, 1997), 410–14. Richard Woolcott, The Hot Seat: Reflections on Diplomacy from Stalin’s Death to the Bali Bombings (HarperCollins, 2003), 215.
- 19.
Bramston, Paul Keating: The Big Picture Leader, 317–19. David Day, Paul Keating: The Biography, First printing, 1st ed. (HarperCollins, 2015), 321–23. The 2015 pulping of the first printing of Day’s biography was not connected with the Antarctic references: 9 May 2015, Mark Kenny “Keating biography to be pulped” Canberra Times, 1.
- 20.
Barry Jones says of Hawke that saving Antarctica was “all his own work”. d’Alpuget, Bob Hawke: The Complete Biography. Susan Ryan and Troy Bramston, eds., The Hawke Government: A Critical Retrospective (Pluto Press, 2003). Hawke and Rielly, Wednesdays with Bob, passim. Craig Emerson, The Boy from Baradine (Scribe, 2018), 186–97.
- 21.
New Zealand is often reported to have proposed a world park in 1975, an idea later seized on by environmentalists. B. E. Talboys, “New Zealand and the Antarctic Treaty,” New Zealand Foreign Affairs Review 28, no. 3 and 4 (1978): 32–33. In 1964, the Treaty Parties designated Antarctica as a ‘Special Conservation Area’. See Antarctic Treaty, Recommendation III-VIII https://ats.aq/devAS/Meetings/Measure/35 (accessed 26 March 2020).
- 22.
Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia’s Foreign Relations in the World of the 1990’s (Melbourne University Press, 1992), 156–58.
- 23.
Shortis argues that Cousteau’s role is underappreciated, even though he seemed unaware of the development of CRAMRA until 1988. Emma Shortis, ““Who Can Resist This Guy?” Jacques Cousteau, Celebrity Diplomacy, and the Environmental Protection of the Antarctic,” Australian Journal of Politics & History 61, no. 3 (2015).
- 24.
Lorraine M. Elliott, International Environmental Politics: Protecting the Antarctic (Macmillan, 1994), 53 and 126. Francesco Francioni, “The Madrid Protocol on the Protection of the Antarctic Environment,” Texas International Law Journal 28, no. 1 (1993): 51, at footnote 15. Jeffrey D. Myhre, The Antarctic Treaty System: Politics, Law, and Diplomacy (Westview, 1986), 40–43.
- 25.
The ATCM final reports record decisions made, but not the process by which they were achieved. J. R. Rowland, “The Treaty Regime and the Politics of the Consultative Parties,” in The Antarctic Legal Regime, ed. Christopher C. Joyner and Sudhir K. Chopra (Martinus Nijhoff, 1988), 11.
- 26.
Other accounts include: Anthony Bergin, “The Politics of Antarctic Minerals: The Greening of White Australia,” Australian Journal of Political Science 26, no. 2 (1991): 216–39; Lorraine M. Elliott, Protecting the Antarctic Environment: Australia and the Minerals Convention, Australian Foreign Policy Papers (Australian National University, 1993). International Environmental Politics: Protecting the Antarctic. W. M. Bush, ed. Antarctica and International Law: A Collection of Inter-State and National Documents (Looseleaf Volumes) (Oceana, 1994–2003), Vol IV, Booklet AU88–89, 11–33. Margaret L. Clark, “The Antarctic Environmental Protocol: NGOs in the Protection of Antarctica,” in Environmental NGOs in World Politics, ed. Matthias Finger and Thomas Prince (Routledge, 1994). W. M. Bush, “Australia, Antarctica, the Minerals Convention and Environmental Protection,” Antarctic and Southern Ocean Law and Policy Occasional Paper 7 (Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania, 1995). Bowden, The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947–1997, 408–18. Joyner, Governing the Frozen Commons, 147–80. Tom Griffiths, Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (UNSW Press, 2007), 286–89. Chavelli Sulikowski, France and the Antarctic Treaty System (PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2013). Runyu Wang, International Law on Antarctic Mineral Resource Exploitation (Peter Lang, 2017), 87–98, 142–49. Alessandro Antonello, The Greening of Antarctica (Oxford University Press, 2019), 77–107.
- 27.
J. G. Mosley, Saving the Antarctic Wilderness (Envirobook, 2009).
- 28.
Malcolm Templeton, Protecting Antarctica: The Development of the Treaty System (New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 2002). A Wise Adventure II: New Zealand and Antarctica after 1960 (Victoria University Press, 2017).
- 29.
A Wise Adventure II: New Zealand and Antarctica after 1960, 126. This author applauds that view and also calls for access to other relevant archives.
- 30.
Ibid., 90–92 and 334 fn42.
- 31.
For example, resolving the issues required much more than three Treaty meetings. Catherine Redgwell, “Antarctica: Wilderness Park or Eldorado Postponed?” Environmental Politics 1, no. 1 (1992): 137–38.
- 32.
See, for example, the idea that Australia signed CRAMRA but refused to ratify: D. W. H. Walton, “The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and the Antarctic Treaty,” in Science Diplomacy: Antarctica, Science, and the Governance of International Spaces, ed. Paul Arthur Berkman, et al. (Smithsonian Institution, 2011), 81–82.
- 33.
See, for example: Elliott, International Environmental Politics: Protecting the Antarctic; Chaturvedi, The Polar Regions; Joyner, Governing the Frozen Commons; Adrian Howkins, The Polar Regions: An Environmental History (Polity, 2016).
- 34.
Archives of non-government organisations are not generally available. Records of the Greenpeace Antarctic campaign have been lodged with the National Library of Australia. https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34271882 (accessed 3 February 2021).
- 35.
The assumption that “being an insider offers a distinct advantage” is examined in Robert V. Labaree, “The Risk of ‘Going Observationalist’: Negotiating the Hidden Dilemmas of Being an Insider Participant Observer,” Qualitative Research 2, no. 1 (2002).
- 36.
Adrian Howkins, “‘Have You Been There?’ Some Thoughts on (Not) Visiting Antarctica,” Environmental History 15, no. 3 (2010): 514–15.
- 37.
While not one of the ‘bureaucratic elite’ to which Elliott refers, the author’s ‘insider’ perspective helps unravel the working of the various forums: Elliott, International Environmental Politics: Protecting the Antarctic, 125–26. The value of inside information is also reflected in: Patrick G. Quilty, “Looking South: Australia’s Antarctic Agenda,” Polar Record 44, no. 4 (2008): 379.
- 38.
Maarten J. De Wit, Minerals and Mining in Antarctica: Science and Technology, Economics and Politics, Oxford Science Publications (Oxford, 1985). John F. Splettstoesser and Gisela A. Dreschhoff, eds., Mineral Resources Potential of Antarctica, vol. 61, Antarctic Research Series (American Geophysical Union, 1990).
- 39.
Marc Trachtenberg, The Craft of International History: A Guide to Method (Princeton University Press, 2006), 7–8.
- 40.
Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World, 3rd ed. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).
- 41.
Oran R. Young, “Political Leadership and Regime Formation: On the Development of Institutions in International Society,” International Organization 45, no. 3 (1991): 288–302.
- 42.
Christopher Darnton, “Archives and Inference: Documentary Evidence in Case Study Research and the Debate over US Entry into World War II,” International Security 42, no. 3 (2017/2018): 84–85.
- 43.
E. H. Carr, What Is History? 2nd ed. (Penguin, 2008), 16–18, 29. In Carr’s analogy, facts are like fish in a vast ocean. They are caught partly by chance, which in turn is determined by the choice of ocean fished and the fishing tackle employed—usually the historian will get the facts they want: ibid., 23.
- 44.
Tom Griffiths, “History and the Creative Imagination,” History Australia 6, no. 3 (2009): 74.8.
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Jackson, A. (2021). Introduction. In: Who Saved Antarctica? . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78405-8_1
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