Decolonisation of Antarctic Governance

The concept of ‘decolonisation’ is complex and developing (Mbah & Ezegwu, 2024), but its essence communicates the broad process of reversing the domination of colonial powers over those they subjugated. It recognises that the vestiges of colonialism persist in contemporary educational, governmental and economic structures that reproduce colonial order (Sultana, 2022). Therefore, critical to decolonialism is a future whereby repressed states are ‘liberated’ from such vestiges through the redistribution of political power (Bajaj, 2022; Taiwo, 2022). This essay will discuss Antarctica’s central governing body, the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), widely criticised as a continuation of Antarctica’s initial colonialist occupation.  

The ‘White Continent’ is claimed by seven states on the grounds of ‘discovery, claim and occupation’, ratified by international territorial law written during the time of European expansion (Dodds & Collis, 2017). This echoes the same settler-colonialist endeavours of early European powers in Africa and the like (Brazzelli, 2014). Signed in 1959 by 12 nations (including the seven original ‘claimants’ - France, UK, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina), the ATS froze Antarctic territorial disputes, crucially outlining that claimant states were not required to cede their sovereign territory rights, nor can new claims be made whilst the ATS is in force (Lord, 2020). Coloniality is perpetuated through the endurance of such territorialisation of dispossession (Sultana, 2022; Elden, 2021), in this case entrenching authority of the Euro-centric powers over the frozen global common. Decolonisation of the ATS therefore demands a destabilising of the claimants’ geopolitical imaginations (Last, 2015).  

At its inception, the 12 signatories of the ATS were automatically granted decision-making authority at future consultative meetings, but 17 other nations have since joined such ranks, including India, China and Brazil. Decolonisation requires changes in governance structures for increased parity of recognition and power distribution between countries (Benjaminson et al., 2021). Such a development evidences a diffusion of global North hegemonic power in Antarctica. However, to reach decision-making status, nations must be conducting ‘substantial’ scientific research in Antarctica (Molenaar, 2021), drawing scholarly criticism of the treaty as protecting the interests of the few wealth signatories whilst excluding poorer countries from Antarctic governance. For example, Lavery (2019) notes that this financial entry barrier explains why South Africa is the sole representative of the continent in the ATS, an alarming reality given Africa’s particular vulnerability to climate change, and Antarctica’s importance in climate mediation. Furthermore, despite increased representation in the ATS, global South interest in Antarctica, particularly Asian interest, has always provoked unease with the original claimants (Dodds & Nuttall, 2016). It is a phenomenon coined ‘Polar Orientalism’, which undermines Asian influence in the ATS (Said, 1978). Numerous examples include the dismissal of India’s proposal to relinquish all territorial claims in 1956 (Chaturvedi, 2013), and recent Australian hostility in 2014, prompted by Chinese developments allegedly encroaching on the ‘Australian Antarctic Territory’ (Dodds & Collis, 2017).  

The claimants have retained a monopoly over Antarctic control through various assertions of colonial territoriality, reproducing their exclusive ability to collect and disseminate scientific data, the ATS’s ‘key currency’ (Lord, 2020). Addressing knowledge production is paramount to securing decolonialism, but the ATS, like many other contemporary government structures, has been undergirded by centuries of colonialist ideology, creating a global network of institutions that dominate scientific and political framings of climate, whilst devaluing ‘othered’ and marginalised knowledge systems (Sultana, 2022). Evidence suggests significant progress must be made before a decolonial Antarctica can be realised for global South nations, whereas today the ATS remains largely an exclusive platform to shape political agenda, monopolise Antarctic control and protect colonial interests (Dodds, 2006; Scott, 2011; Hemmings et al., 2017).  

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