The Federal Government’s 20 Year Australian Antarctic Strategic Plan does not feature the long-term vision required for a 20-year strategy.

In 1959, Australia almost derailed the original negotiation of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) – a series of complex arrangements regulating relations among states in the Antarctic – due to Cold War tensions with the USSR. Australia feared a Russian invasion of Australian Antarctic Territory informed by intelligence indicating that the Russians were looking to establish a submarine base that could service a Southern Ocean fleet.

Australia did however ratify the Antarctic Treaty System. Since then, maintaining Australia’s strategic interests in Antarctica has involved balancing territorial ambition and political commitment to Australia’s treaty obligations.

The 20 Year Australian Antarctic Strategic Plan addresses two key questions. First, how many resources should be devoted to activities that symbolically underpin Australia’s claim to territorial sovereignty? Second, how many resources should go towards supporting the functions of the Antarctic Treaty System?

Dr Tony Press, author of the strategy, writes “Australia’s limited physical presence [in Antarctica] has led some to comment on the defensibility of Australia’s sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory”. However, as long as the ATS remains in place the provisions of Article IV of the treaty prevent Australia from increasing its presence since “no acts or activities taking place while the present Treaty is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica”.

Therein lies the challenge: as long as the ATS remains in force no actions conducted by Australia to symbolically support claims to territorial sovereignty are considered valid. However, if the ATS were to collapse, any territorial claims advanced by Australia would rely upon the same symbolic actions to support their petition for sovereignty.

Australia’s national strategy towards Antarctica, expressed in the 20 Year Plan, is a policy that balances the potential failure of the ATS against Australia’s long-term commitments to maintaining the treaty. Antarctic funding in Australia is thus directed towards activities that both support the ATS and symbolically reinforce Australia’s claims to territorial sovereignty. The 20 Year Plan provides no surprises here. However, strangely, for a 20-year plan, it lacks a long-term vision.

In 2048, the Madrid Protocol – a wide range of provisions relating to protecting the Antarctic environment – is slated to come under review. Here, the prohibition of non-scientific mineral resource activities could very well be lifted. Australia’s 20 Year Plan provides limited means to respond to this decision.

At the conclusion of Australia’s 20 Year Plan there will only be 14 years left before this critical period of negotiation takes place. However, the plan makes limited reference to mineral resources activities in the Antarctic, containing the implicit assumption that, following 2048, it will be business as usual for the ATS. This fails to take into account changing geopolitical circumstances in the region, by producing a strategy intended to endure until 2034.

Press notes “it is difficult to envisage the ban on mining in the Antarctic being lifted in, or after, 2048 in the absence of a significant change of policy or perspective from key Antarctic Treaty Parties”. After 2048, it would require three-quarters of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Partners (ATCPS), and consensus among the original signatories of the Madrid Protocol, in order to allow non-scientific mineral resource activities in Antarctica. While this is a large number of signatories, it is not impossible to imagine that key Antarctic Treaty Parties could be in favour of mining in Antarctica in 2048.

Indeed, during the original negotiation period for the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA), 14 states became Antarctic Treaty Consultative Partners – including India and China. It would be naive to assume that these states joined the ATS out of goodwill and a flair for scientific endeavour while having no interest in the potential economic benefits derived from resource extraction in Antarctica. The primary reason CRAMRA failed, was not due to states’ initial objections, but rather due to the environmental catastrophe of the Exxon Valdex oil spill in 1989.

The original CRAMRA negotiations elicited large-scale domestic discontent, most notably in Australia and France. These protests were a key reason why CRAMRA was consigned to the dark. However, there is no guarantee that the same levels of domestic discontent will exist in 2048. There is no further guarantee that, even if domestic discontent did exist in 2048, that the ATCP states would listen to their protests.

Australia’s policy towards Antarctica should be more than a strategy that balances two potential policy outcomes. Australia should be willing to advocate modifications to the ATS that reinforce and support Australia’s strategic interests. The 20 Year Plan, while a comprehensive and welcome addition to Australian Antarctic policy, only goes part way to bridging this gap.

Thom Dixon is a Councillor with the NSW Chapter of the AIIA. He has just completed a research project on the history of the Antarctic Treaty System. This article can be republished with attribution under a Creative Commons Licence.