Brazil & Southern Cone - October 2007 (ISSN 1471-4431

On 17 October British newspaper The Guardian reported that the government of the United Kingdom is planning to claim sovereign rights over a vast area of the seabed off the Antarctic. The report was later confirmed by the British foreign office. The reports on London's ambitions raised concerns in Santiago and, as expected, Buenos Aires. 

Just a quarter of century ago Argentina and the UK fought a war in the South Atlantic Ocean over the sovereignty of the Falklands Islands. Last month we reported the angry Argentine response to UK plans to submit a bid to the United Nations proving that thousands of extra square miles of the ocean floor surrounding the Falklands are geographically part of the islands.

The UK claim over the Falklands' seabed is based on international legislation stating that a nation's legitimately-held territory can extend up to 350 miles from its coast; if it can verify that it is part of the shoreline's underlying continental shelf. The UK plans to claim sovereignty over more than 1m square kilometres of Antarctic seabed on the same premise. 

Falklands
Argentina and the UK fought a war in 1982, after Argentine forces invaded the Falklands Islands, a British Overseas Territory. The UK won but sovereignty over the islands, which the Argentines call Malvinas, is still passionately contested by many in Argentina - in spite of, or perhaps because of, two-thirds of the 907 people who lost their lives in the conflict were Argentine youths.

The Falklands issue has long been used by Argentine politicians to find support among the masses and this has been no different during the current administration of President Néstor Kirchner [RBS-07-04]. The UK prospective claim over the islands' seabed, however, has certainly not helped to soothe the Argentine mood. Kirchner and his officials seized the opportunity created by the seabed claim to press the UK government to negotiate sovereignty over the Falklands. 

However, the Argentine demand for a complete reversal of the status quo remains as unrealistic as ever. Despite the fact that the Falklands are inhabited by descendents of English and Scottish settlers, who speak English and have remained loyal to their mother country for over 170 years, the Argentine government still claims the islands' sovereignty.

For many Argentine nationalists, however, the Falklands' proximity to Argentine territory is strong enough argument to claim sovereignty over the islands. Furthermore, the prospective UK claim for its seabed has also now increased suspicion among other, more cautious, Argentines, who have started to wonder whether the UK is determined to secure long-term strategic and resource-based interests in the South Atlantic which could be detrimental to Argentina.

Antarctic Treaty
Significantly, the prospective UK claim over the Antarctic seems to have provoked the same reaction also among the even more cautious Chileans. Indeed, the Chilean government issued a statement on 18 October "making public [its] reservations" to the confirmed preparation of the UK claim for the Antarctic seabed.

While the UK sovereignty over the Falklands should not be contested, the same cannot be said of its claim over the British Antarctic Territory. This is a triangular wedge, with its apex at the South Pole, which covers 666,000 square miles. The territory was first claimed in 1908 and the UK maintains two permanently-manned scientific stations there. 

Both Argentina and Chile also claim sovereignty over parts of the same sector of the Antarctic claimed by the UK and, therefore, could also claim sovereignty over the Antarctic seabed. Significantly, both countries are geographically closer to the Antarctic and also have scientific stations there. The Chilean government has settled a few families in the Antarctic at Villa las Estrellas, and there are Argentine and Chilean children who have actually been born in the continent. 

Furthermore, in order to avoid hostilities Argentina, Chile and the UK - together with four other countries that also have territorial claims over the frozen continent (Australia, France, Norway and New Zealand) - signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959. Crucially, the Antarctic treaty did not recognise or established any claims to territorial sovereignty in the frozen continent. 

A further treaty, the Environmental Protocol, agreed in 1991, was supposed to have eased any remaining hostility, especially after the Falklands war, by forbidding all mineral activity other than for scientific research. Therefore, the UK claim would be in defiance of the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty, not least because it specifically states that no new claims shall be asserted over the continent, and subsequently over Antarctic seabed and its resources. 

Triggers and prospects
The prospective UK claims seem to have been triggered by the ticking clock set by the 1982 UN convention on the law of the sea, which requires all coastal states to notify the UN of the outer limits of their continental shelves by May 2009. Indeed, the British foreign office declared to the BBC that the claim over the Antarctic sea bed was "a safeguard for the future". Moreover, Australia and France are rumoured to be preparing claims to the UN for the Antarctic seabed.

In an article in The Guardian Alan Boyle, a law professor at the University of Edinburgh, argued that the UK claim would not necessarily mean a violation nor a threat to the Antarctic Treaty. Boyle said that "defining the outer limits of the shelf changes nothing and confers no new rights to anyone", adding that the extraction of oil, gas and minerals is forbidden under the treaty's Environmental Protocol. He concluded that the claim would actually serve to "reinforce [the UK's] ability to enforce commitments" under the treaty and the protocol. 

Yet for the editors of The Guardian, other commentators and, significantly, for environmentalists, the UK move "is likely to signal a quickening of the race for territory around the South Pole in the world's least explored continent". Indeed, the Argentine foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, confirmed to the Buenos Aires Herald that Argentina was also preparing to submit a claim for the Antarctic seabed "in defence of national interest and sovereign rights". 

The Chilean government, meanwhile, asked Argentina and the UK government to continue to "comply with the Antarctic Treaty". Jorge Tarud, a Chilean congressman from the governing coalition, however, was quoted as saying that on 25 October a congress committee would be visiting Antarctica to "make use of the usual and natural sovereignty Chile has always had over that territory". 

This view has been confirmed by a declaration by Chile's foreign minister, Alejandro Foxley, who said on 22 October that "nobody can infringe Chile's rights over its Antarctic territory". In any case, Foxley said that the confirmation that the UK was planning to present a claim for Antarctic seabed had prompted the Chilean government to do the same. The race for the Antarctic is on. 

• Protecting the Antarctic
  The Antarctic is regarded as the first place that will see big impacts from global warming according to scientists. Temperature in the continent has risen by as much as three degrees centigrade in the past fifty years in some places. This had adverse effects in the environment, especially the wildlife, which is under threat from non-native species. WWF, a UK-based environmental NGO, has asked for the creation of protected areas in the Antarctic, especially large parts of its surrounding oceans. 
  
• Ozone hole
  Chilean scientists claimed the hole in the ozone layer in the southern pole has decreased from the 26m square kilometres it was a year ago to 22m square kilometres now. Scientist, however, warned people in the Punta Arenas and Magallanes region in the extreme south of the country that the danger levels from extreme sun radiation were still very high and could reach the maximum 7UV measure as the hole annually moves from the heart of the Antarctic to South America.