This article focuses on the ability of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) to make governance decisions, taking the regulation and management of Antarctic tourism as a case study. The note ends with suggestions on how the dashboard could be further developed. In this sense, the indicators are concerned less with accuracy and more with their materiality in highly complex, uncertain circumstances and strong inter-relationships. The aim is to provide accessible heuristics for a complex and emerging phenomenon that may only be described through crude estimates of quantitative data or through qualitative impressions of geopolitical information over a time line of anywhere from five to a hundred years. Current baseline data are available as described through a range of open-source online databases and information sources. It draws on a concise set of elements that build on existing research, including social, economic and environmental factors. Draft indicators for the Antarctic Scenarios Integrated Framework are presented in line with an organising structure analogous to the current practice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Scenario processes enable structured possibilities about the impacts and implications of multiple drivers of change that need to be integrated to enable effective decision making within the Antarctic Treaty System. It supports increasing interest in the complexities of long-term futures relating to Antarctica. This research note provides guidance for the development of simple indicators set in a dashboard format to illustrate current and future states of Antarctica. Such further research will add to knowledge about Antarctic practices and governance and borderscaping theory.
It concludes that more needs to be known about the subtle effects on the many actors in this implied borderscape.
The article argues that understanding the full reach of the absences on practices and attitudes in this Antarctic system is important for the continent’s ongoing security and for border theory. Enacted narrative analysis reveals effects of strategic narrative on practices, showing the Antarctic Treaty system has created an ‘implied’ border system that lacks some of the capabilities of an acknowledged border system. Borderscaping and borderwork concepts are used to examine territoriality in Antarctica. This article fills a gap in Antarctic research by exploring the question ‘What borderwork is evident in the Antarctic Treaty System in relation to the construction and maintenance of its physical boundaries?’ through a study of a gateway to Antarctica-New Zealand. Narratives of peace, science and environmental protection in the Antarctic Treaty System drive a collective governance system that avoids border discourse even though physical boundaries exist. The task of thinking about Antarctic futures must be faced with a multidisciplinary vision.Īntarctica is arguably the only geographical territory left on Earth without political borders. It is necessary to think about the future of Antarctic governance to ensure that strategic decisions are taken at the appropriate time, so that the objectives of the Antarctic Treaty System can be achieved. The purpose of this article is to promote prospective studies about all these topics. The new uses of, and economic and strategic interests in Antarctica have also had an important effect on the evolution of this international regime. It is a scenario where the importance of sovereignty and the influence of the claimant states are greater than is normally assumed in the public discourse. The pressure to internationalise Antarctic governance puts stress on the relationship between “traditional” and “new” Antarctic countries.
The increase in membership, heterogeneity, and asymmetry of the states that are part of it, including the seven claimants, has produced substantial changes in the political equilibrium of this international regime. Five factors that will eventually lead to political-legal changes in the Antarctic Treaty System are analysed.