Who Saved Antarctica?: The Heroic Era of Antarctic Diplomacy

by Andrew Jackson

Overview

This book provides a diplomatic history of a turning point in Antarctic governance: the 1991 adoption of comprehensive environmental protection obligations for an entire continent, which prohibited mining. Solving the mining issue became a symbol of finding diplomatic consensus. The book combines historiographic concepts of contingency, conjuncture and accidental events with theories of structural, entrepreneurial and intellectual leadership. Drawing on archival documents, it shows that Antarctic governance is more adaptive than some imagine, and policy success depends on the interplay of normative practices, serendipitous events, public engagement and influential players able to exploit those circumstances. Ultimately, the events revealed in this book show that the protection of the Antarctic Treaty itself remains as important as protecting the Antarctic environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030784072
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	09/01/2021
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Andrew Jackson is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Tasmania.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- 2. Antarctic mining might be possible—from finding gold to 1982.- 3. Negotiating a minerals convention—June 1982 to June 1988.- 4. Doubts about CRAMRA—June 1988 to May 1989.- 5. Antarctica’s crisis of consensus—May to October 1989.- 6.Tensions over Antarctica’s future—October 1989 to November 1990.- 7. Negotiating an environment prool—November 1990 to April 1991.- 8. Antarctic consensus restored—April to October 1991.- 9. Influences and influencers in Antarctic affairs.- 10. Conclusions.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'Who Saved Antarctica? tackles a celebrated episode in Antarctic diplomatic history, one that has generated legends and heroes. Andrew Jackson journeys beneath the familiar narrative to reveal a much more complex, nuanced and believable reality, building a bedrock of analysis that will strengthen present and future work in the Antarctic Treaty System. He writes as both scholar and practitioner, a wise and discerning participant-observer of processes and prools he knows intimately. The result is a powerful piece of storytelling as well as a brilliant work of scholarship.'

—Tom Griffiths, Emeritus Professor of History, Australian National University, Australia

‘By leveraging newly available archives Andrew Jackson has produced an original and fascinating story from the engine room of Antarctic policy making that challenges the conventional wisdom on the overturning of the Antarctic minerals convention and that produced one of Australia’s greatest diplomatic triumphs.’

—Anthony Bergin, Senior Fellow, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, author of The Politics of Antarctic Minerals: the Greening of White Australia

‘The stressing of the Antarctic Treaty to breaking point, snubbing of the closest and oldest allies, dumping of the extraordinary diplomatic achievement of a minerals convention, conjunction of the interests of a mining industry out to protect its patch and an environmental movement out to protect a continent, a jostling of the egos of heads of government and culmination in a comprehensive regime to protect the Antarctic environment. All this and more is in this fascinating tale from the pen of Andrew Jackson. Rarely has there been a more dispassionate, perceptive insider account of a matter of still contemporary relevance given the impermanence of the mining ban.’

—William Bush, international lawyer, compiler of Antarctica and International Law: a Collection of Inter-state and National Documents.