Security issues and the law of the sea: The southern ocean

Abstract

Abstract The Antarctic region, notwithstanding its remoteness and extremely inhospitable nature, merits serious consideration with respect to security issues posed by ocean space. Four major security‐related issues are particularly relevant for those states which have historically demonstrated interest in the Antarctic/Southern Ocean region: (1) maintaining secure transoceanic shipping routes through the Drake Passage; (2) maintaining secure access to natural resources, both living and nonliving, in the region; (3) assuaging geostrategic apprehensions by Latin American states over their exposed southern flank; and (4) allaying political implications aroused by a possible ideological challenge to the Antarctic Treaty system, which might come by Third World states advocating in the United Nations that Antarctica ought to be declared part of the “Common Heritage of Mankind.”; This article concludes that the present Antarctic Treaty system is working well, but if genuine criticism is merited, the system ought...