This is Antarctica – it’s the only continent on earth without an indigenous human population.
This has made it a very enticing target throughout history for countries wishing to claim it
in order to expand their empires, even if that means overlapping territorial claims.
But who is claiming what, why, and how?
Join me as we talk through and try to understand the anomalous annexes of Antarctica.
Antarctica is the continent which straddles the southern pole of planet earth.
As a quick comparison to the north pole – which lies in the Arctic, in the middle of a frozen
ocean, the south pole is surrounded by a whole continent of land, albeit land which is covered
by snow and ice.
But Antarctica also has mountains, beaches, penguins and all the other things that come
with being a continent.
What it doesn’t have is people.
Yes it has people nowadays living in scientific stations and going for tourist visits, but
it doesn’t have a native people group.
It is naturally uninhabited – at least by humans.
But what’s that?
Imperialism is here and countries are colonising other continents for wealth!
That sure sounds like it could get complicated for our snowy subject.
To start with we’ll find out exactly which countries are claiming what, and why, before
we talk about the Antarctic Treaty, and how it all might play out in the future.
In short, the Antarctic claimants are Chile, Argentina, the UK, Norway, Australia, New
Zealand and France.
This leaves a section of unclaimed land (the largest unclaimed section of land on earth).
Most of these claims are recognised only by other claimants and not by the broader international
community.
The UK was the first country to officially lay claim to Antarctica.
This began with sealing and whaling, around islands off the coast (which they also claimed)
as well as several discovery missions on the mainland – including of course the doomed
Scott mission to the South Pole.
The British formalised their claim in 1908, but had also laid claim to other vast areas
– which were transferred to their ex-colonies New Zealand and Australia in the 1920s and
1930s.
Norway was another country that hunted off the coast of Antarctica, and played a large
role in the early days of exploration of the continent, and they have claimed this sector
of Antarctica accordingly.
In particular, the Norwegian Amundsen lead the expedition which first reached the South
Pole.
Among other historical expeditions were also Nazi Germany that flew over an area they called
Neuschwabenland and dropped large darts with swastikas.
Interestingly lots of maps show the Norwegian claim petering out before the south pole as
Norway had not officially defined the southern border of its claim - but in 2015 Norway confirmed
its claim does reach the South Pole.
The Chilean and Argentinian Antarctic claims are where things get really interesting – if
historical geography is what you’re interested in.
Chile and Argentina both argue the root of their claims dates back to the 1400s, several
hundred years before the discovery of Antarctica.
When Spain and Portugal were colonising the Americas, they had a deal that divided the
world from north pole to south, including any undiscovered land.
When Chile and Argentina got their independence from the Spanish empire, they also argue that
they inherited the Spanish claim – which kind of was initially claiming land that they
didn’t know for sure existed.
Further to this, as with other countries, Chile and Argentina have a historical connection
with coastal portions of Antarctica through whaling and sealing.
There is another unique perspective put forward by Chile, which is that the Andes mountain
range may have been connected with the Antarctic peninsula sometime in the geologic past.
This is known as the Scotia ridge (which is currently underwater).
As the Andes forms a large portion of the border between Chile and Argentina – this
could be a reason why the Chilean claim extends to the Antarctic peninsula.
This is in spite of the fact that this is not represented further north in the maritime
border between the two countries, which was bilaterally agreed on in 1984.
And to round out the claims on Antarctic territories we have the French territory of Adelie land
– whose coast was discovered by a French explorer who named it after his wife.
So what are the reasons that each country uses to justify claiming portions of this
frozen uninhabited wilderness?
If we whittle down to the major reasons for each country’s claim in the Antarctic, we
get an Euler diagram that looks something like this: with these countries relying heavily
on their early exploration of the continent, these countries relying on a connection via
early resource exploitation, like whaling, these countries on transfer of sovereignty
from another claim (Chile and Argentina from the Spanish empire and New Zealand and Australia
from the British), And Chile in particular on a geologic connection to Antarctica.
All countries also use their previous and current activities such as performing science
on Antarctica to support their claims – although it should be noted that scientific stations
are expressly not to be associated with territorial claims as per the Antarctic Treaty – which
we’ll talk more about in a moment.
One concept utilised by all claimant countries that I find particularly interesting is that
of ‘peripheral possession’ and continuity.
This is the idea that a country doesn’t have to occupy all of a territory in order
to possess it.
In fact from this perspective, a country may only control tiny areas on the periphery,
and from these lay claim to vast swathes of territory.
Just out of interest – let’s compare each country’s size to its Antarctic claim.
Australia is this big, Metropolitan France is this big, New Zealand looks like this,
here is Chile, Argentina, the UK, and finally Norway.
Ok good, we understand the map of Antarctic claims – now let’s find out why these
claims are frozen in the Antarctic Treaty.
During the 20th century and particularly during the Cold War, global international tensions
were pretty high.
The thought of having a huge, unregulated and out-of-the way landmass that may have
been used for military testing was pretty uncomfortable for a lot of countries.
This lead to the Antarctic Treaty – which was signed in 1959.
The Antarctic treaty ensured the continent would only be used for peaceful purposes,
banned military testing, banned nuclear explosions and waste, and ensured science would be continued
with cooperation between countries.
That all sounds pretty good – but where does it leave our claims?
Wellllll that’s where the treaty gets a bit wishy-washy.
Signatories of the Antarctic Treaty don’t have to recognise or renounce any of the claims.
They do agree, that no new claims will be made and that existing claims will be left
as is.
Except the US and Russia – neither of which recognise any of the current claims but also
reserved their right to make a claim of their own in the future, if they feel like it.
So now we know which countries are claiming what – and which countries aren’t claiming
anything, but nobody else is allowed to claim anything, except we might if we feel like
it – the burning and much more interesting question is.. how?
What gives countries the right to claim any of the only humanly uninhabited continent
in the world?
Why do they want to, and is it the right thing to do?
These are philosophical questions that I definitely cannot answer – but I’d love to hear your
thoughts in the comments.
If we look to the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty for guidance one theme is glaringly
clear – Antarctica should be preserved.
So should the countries making formal claims be solely responsible for preserving their
sectors?
Who’s responsible for the unclaimed sector?
Lots of different countries have a stake in this continent.
And given that Antarctica houses 70% of the freshwater on earth, what happens to it will
affect us all.
Perhaps in the future the international community will take a more communal approach to Antarctica’s
administration through the UN, or perhaps the status quo will prevail, with a handful
of countries taking the lead on ensuring Antarctica’s ongoing preservation.
The Antarctic Treaty was great for its time.
It ensured that Antarctica would not be the another front in the cold war, and even better
that science on the continent would be encouraged and shared.
But it did put a lot of things in the too hard basket, leaving them in a tangled, unresolved
but frozen mess.
It also raises some interesting questions about the conventions of peripheral possession,
and of possession in general.
How much land should a country control before they claim an entire wedge of continent?
Does visiting somewhere first mean that a country should get a claim to it for all time?
Do countries have the right to claim any of Antarctica?
At some point – the territorial claims will need to be unravelled.
But for now, the world is enjoying a science-focussed, peaceful attempt to preserve an entire continent,
and that might be worth tolerating a tangle of tenuous territories.
Let me know what you think about the territorial claims in the comments – I always love to
hear what you have to say about these questions that probably don’t have one right answer.
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Thanks for watching.