The History of the Antarctic Treaty System
The History of the Antarctic Treaty System
And what it can teach us about space
It’s been a hot summer here in North America, so let’s cast our thoughts southward to the winter hemisphere, all the way down to the refreshingly dark and frozen Antarctic. Antarctica is often spoken of as a good parallel and testing ground for space settlement— for my newsletter about Polar Qualification health screenings and accessibility in space, I noted that both environments are dangerous and remote, but scientifically rich. Other similarities include the absence of an indigenous human population, and the presence of valuable mineral resources.
These kinds of similarities are why Jessica O’Reilly was invited to speak at the Artemis & Ethics Workshop at NASA HQ back in April (such an interesting workshop that I’m still writing posts about it). O’Reilly is an environmental anthropologist who has studied how humans— particularly scientists and policymakers— participate in environmental management in Antarctica. If you’d like to learn more about this fascinating subject, she has a book out called The Technocratic Antarctic: An Ethnography of Scientific Expertise and Environmental Governance. O’Reilly now advises the US government on the Antarctic treaty negotiations as their environmental liaison, and gave a talk at the NASA workshop on the legal history of Antarctica to provide context for the Artemis Accords.
The Antarctic Treaty
The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 was written during the Cold War (like the Outer Space Treaty of 1967). Tensions had be growing on the continent since the end of World War II: several nations had made territorial claims, and there had been various incidents between military personnel in Antarctica. During the International Geophysical Year in 1957-1958, twelve countries built scientific bases around Antarctica, and then a few— including the United States and the Soviet Union— chose not to dismantle these bases at the end of the IGY, increasing international tension. This led U.S. President Eisenhower to convene an Antarctic Conference for those twelve countries, which eventually developed and signed the Antarctic Treaty in December 1959. As of today, 56 countries have signed the treaty.
The treaty preserves the Antarctic for “peaceful purposes only”, and emphasizes “freedom of scientific investigation and cooperation toward that end”, including free exchange and availability of scientific observations and results. Like the Outer Space Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty forbids the establishment of military bases and the testing of weapons, including nuclear explosions. It also freezes all territorial claims— seven of the original twelve signatories had already claimed territory, but the treaty forbids any “new claim, or enlargement of an existing claim to territorial sovereignty” while the treaty is in force.
The Madrid Protocol
The original Antarctic Treaty was followed by a number of other agreements (forming the “Antarctic Treaty System”), including a Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities, signed by 19 states (including the U.S.) in 1988. The Minerals Convention attempted to establish “a regime governing Antarctic mineral resource activities” to regulate mineral extraction, but was never ratified, and in 1991 the Antarctic Treaty was instead updated with the Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection.
The Madrid Protocol designates Antarctica as “a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science,” acknowledging the intrinsic value of the continent, “including its wilderness and aesthetic values and its value as an area for the conduct of scientific research.” The protocol emphasizes the obligation to limit adverse impacts on the environment by human activities in Antarctica. (An interesting difference from the Outer Space Treaty, which requires that we avoid “harmful contamination” of celestial bodies, but otherwise focuses on the need to avoid “harmful interference” with other human activities, rather than protecting the space environment for the sake of its own intrinsic value.) The Madrid Protocol also directly states that “Any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research, shall be prohibited,” thus replacing the Minerals Convention and indefinitely1 banning mineral extraction in Antarctica.
As O’Reilly explained, the Madrid Protocol is a values-driven agreement that was the result of pushback from environmentalists and their wealthy donors. Greenpeace had established a year-round non-governmental Antarctic base in 1987 called World Park Base and demanded that the entire continent be declared as a World Park. This movement drew media attention towards damaging environmental practices by the United States, New Zealand, and other nations operating in Antarctica, as well as an attitude that O’Reilly described as the “hubris of infinity” (an excellent phrase that can also be applied to common attitudes towards space). World Park Base was generally ignored by the Antarctic Treaty Nations, and was dismantled in 1992, after the Madrid Protocol was signed.
Lessons for Future Space Agreements
Jessica O’Reilly argued that the Antarctic Treaty works because it’s low-stakes with high incentives for cooperation, though the reason the stakes are low is because of the mineral extraction ban in the Madrid Protocol. The treaty system uses shared values as a focus for consensus, and in fact the regular closed meetings of the treaty parties rely on total consensus decision-making (which O’Reilly does not especially like— she believes this model is a barrier to progressive solutions).
In particular, the replacement of the Minerals Convention with the Madrid Protocol and its mineral extraction ban shows the power of environmental movements to influence international law, particularly movements that have public support. Could a large enough space environmental movement lead to a mineral extraction ban in space? It’s hard to imagine, but the story of the Madrid Protocol does suggest that it’s possible, with enough public support. On the other hand, as O’Reilly noted, the space regime takes certain human activities in space as givens that the Antarctic Treaty forbids, such as the potential construction of permanent structures for non-scientific purposes. Permanent human habitation in space would, practically, require some kind of in-situ resource extraction, which would make a total minerals extraction ban unfeasible.
Finally, O’Reilly observed that there are longstanding cultures of international cooperation in exploratory science both in space and in Antarctica, which makes it easier to create treaties based on cooperation, but she also warned that there will be challenges to this kind of culture with the arrival of new actors, new or re-interpreted values, and advances in knowledge. Indeed, we can see that the Outer Space Treaty is already facing criticism and challenges of interpretation as new types of space actors— private mining companies, for example— begin to make plans for activities in space that weren’t explicitly considered when the treaty was being written over fifty years ago.
Upcoming
I’ll be giving a virtual talk for the Royal Institution on “The ethics of space exploration” on August 10. Livestream tickets are pay-what-you-can.
I’ll also be giving a virtual talk on space ethics and inclusion for the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney on August 14 for their hybrid Research Symposium, inspired by their current Atmospheric Memory exhibit.
And I’ll be participating on a virtual panel on equity in space travel for the Boston Museum of Science on August 30. I don’t have a link for that event yet, but keep an eye on their Public Events page for more info.
Other News
I have a Worldview op-ed out in Nature Physics arguing that “Space exploration is a team sport, not the preserve of a few powerful men”. That should be a paywall-free link.
I also had a lot of fun putting together this “Best science fiction films about space, according to an astrophysicist” for New Scientist. That link is sometimes paywalled, sometimes not, depending on what browser you open it in, apparently.
Finally, a few months ago I had the pleasure of chatting with Hampshire College professor Salman Hameed about the “Societal Challenges for Human Settlements on the Moon” for his new Chai on the Moon series on YouTube, which is up now:
Although Article 25 of the Madrid Protocol does describe a mechanism for modifying the amendment banning mineral extraction during a review of the treaty.