While Australia criticises other countries for their supposed expansionist policies, Australia is the most brazen of any country in asserting ownership of territory that doesn’t belong to it. And while Australia claims to be staunchly committed to the environmental protection of the Antarctic, its actions belie such a claim, with its proposal to build a $2 billion concrete aerodrome at its Davis base.
Australia bluntly states that it has sovereignty – not just a claim – over 5.9 million square kilometres of Antarctica plus a 2 million square kilometre Exclusive Economic Zone offshore. Undeterred by its treaty obligations, Australia’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper stated without equivocation, “We have sovereignty over 42 per cent of the continent, including sovereign rights over adjacent offshore areas.”
At the time, I assumed this was an inadvertent error. However, when I recently asked the Department of Foreign Affairs, it said Australia’s sovereignty “was established in 1936 following a transfer of the territory from Britain”. In the absence of widespread international recognition, this meant nothing. The claim was rendered irrelevant when Australia signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 and ratified it in 1961. The treaty does not recognise any country as having sovereignty over any part of the Antarctic.
Furthermore, although the White Paper said Australia is “staunchly committed” to environmental protection in the Antarctic, this is hard to reconcile with its current proposal to build a 2.7 kilometre concrete aerodrome at its Davis base – one of three bases it uses on a narrow ice-free strip on the edge of the continent to perform scientific research.
Only 19 people are at Davis in winter when the weather is often atrocious for flying. Yet the concrete aerodrome is estimated to cost more than $2 billion so that a year-round service can be provided. Contrary to Australia’s professed commitment to protecting the environment, the 10-year effort to transport construction materials for the aerodrome and level the rocky site will seriously harm plants and wildlife colonies near the base and interrupt research in summer or winter.
Tasmanian researchers Shaun Brooks and Julia Jabour cite authoritative data showing the aerodrome and associated construction is estimated to increase Australia’s “disturbance” footprint from 6 per cent to 35 per cent of the total. This is the largest of the 29 countries operating 70 research stations in the Antarctic. The US’ footprint is 24 per cent, Russia’s 13 per cent, Japan’s 6 per cent and China’s 5 per cent. The figure for France and many others is only 2 per cent.
President Dwight Eisenhower and his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev were instrumental in establishing the Antarctic Treaty as one of the great diplomatic accomplishments of the 20th century. US support for the treaty was a sharp departure from its stance in 1957 when archival documents show its joint military chiefs ordered staff to draw up plans for the “establishment now of US claims to those portions of the Antarctic, including those claimed by allies, to which we have a basis for valid claims”.
The treaty entrenches non-militarisation of the continent and promotes international scientific cooperation and environmental protection. The continent is administered with a light touch by 29 countries conducting research there. As well as refusing to recognise that any country has sovereignty, the treaty explicitly states that no new claims, or enlargement of existing claims, are allowed.
Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand Norway and the UK maintain the claims they asserted before 1959. Apart from Australia’s fanciful insistence that it owns 42 per cent of the continent, the other six countries claim 38 per cent while 20 per cent remains unclaimed. No other countries accept these claims.
Subject to strict conditions, countries can claim Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles offshore. In 1984 the Hawke government took the bold step of claiming an offshore EEZ in Antarctica. In response, the US sent a formal note pointing out:
“It is a well-established principle that the sovereign rights over an EEZ derive from the sovereignty of the coastal state over adjacent land territory. The US must reiterate its long-standing position that it does not recognise any claim to territories in Antarctica.”
The US position is unchanged — and correct.
Yet Australia continues to criticise other countries supposedly usurping territory illegally, such as China, in the much smaller South China Sea, where conflicting claims of the littoral states to resources such as fish or oil this sea attract intense global publicity.
The resource rights at issue in the South China Sea are based on claims to sovereignty over uninhabited islets, reefs and rocks called “features” that supposedly generate Exclusive Economic Zones.
A leading scholar on the Law of the Sea, a former Australian naval captain, the late Sam Bateman, explained that these claims differ from those to sovereignty over onshore land or to territorial sea that extends a maximum of 12 nautical miles from the coastline.
In 2016 the Philippines won a Law of the Sea Tribunal case that rejected an EEZ based on historic claims made by China to geographical “features”. Although unlikely at this stage, it would be better if China used the Antarctic treaty as a template to persuade all the littoral states to put their claims on indefinite hold and demilitarise the South China Sea.
While China has fallen foul in international tribunals, so too has Australia and the UK. Australia lost a court case in The Hague after it used the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to help it prevent the impoverished new nation of East Timor achieving a fair distribution of resource boundaries between East Timor and Australia.
Similarly, despite Britain being 13,000 kilometres from the Falkland Islands, it rejected a 2016 UN Commission finding that Argentina’s maritime boundary should include the Falklands. Britain is also on the losing end of legal cases that bolster Mauritius’ claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Britain severed this archipelago from Mauritius colony in 1965, promising to give it back after independence. Instead, it removed the inhabitants from one of the Chagos islands, Diego Garcia, and leased it to the US for use as a massive military base. The International Court of Justice in 2019 found that Britain should end its administration of the Chagos archipelago because it had not been legally separated from Mauritius. Britain refuses.
If Australia wants to be regarded as a good international citizen, it should abandon its absurd claim to have sovereign ownership of 42 per cent of Antarctica. Australia should also scrap the proposal for the aerodrome. Planes able to land on snow should continue to be used if necessary.
Brian Toohey is author of Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State.
Comments
13 responses to “Australia’s plans for a $2 billion airstrip in the Antarctic is environmental vandalism”
Whoever supplies the concrete will make a good profit.
An all weather strip seems like a good idea. Study of the continent is good science.
Conflating an airstrip with claims is a stretch. All models of sharing Antarctica admit Australia has a large portion, even if based on sharing with all countries, it amounts to 22%. The airstrip will be used for many purposes and allows access under the rules. The cost seems very high but probably will be used to suck up the USA desire for 2% on war expenditure. It may be used for the “Space Force”?
International law seems to be in flux. USA can invade Syria and corral oil without condemnation. There will be many mineral resources in Antarctica and their exploitation is inevitable. It will take many decades.
This article seems to be designed to be somewhat Hegelian?
“Whoever supplies the concrete will make a good profit.”
“There will be many mineral resources in Antarctica and their exploitation is inevitable.”
Obviously you are not able to factor in climate change and ensuing catastrophes, and the need for action. It’s good science too.
It’s all about profits and exploitation. Old school, business as usual.
Of course if it was China, it would be plastered all over the news that the airstrip was the first stage in establishing a military base.
One wonders whether vassal state Australia is just following another covert US order here for strategic reasons.
Davis research base is in a very convenient place to cover the Indian ocean. The longitude line goes right through the middle of it, and it also virtually aligns with Diego Garcia above.
It is a joke that Australia is concerned about the environment in the Antarctic, like all things with this government the spin and advertising is unrelated to the reality. If ‘Scott of the Antarctic melt’ was serious he would be spending this money on preparation for climate change and actually doing something to mitigate the effects of it. He should also be active on the world stage in promoting action because we are one country that will be very seriously affected. They are AWOL on our most threatening security risk while being puppets of the US in pushing for more old paradigm wars.
The so-called “conservatives”, rather than care about conservation, are more interested in conquering new territories, including space and Antarctic conquests, rather than defending the living biosphere from toxic pollution and global warming, as warned by James Hansen, the leading climate scientist:
“Burning all fossil fuels would create a different planet than the one that humanity knows. The palaeo-climate record and ongoing climate change make it clear that the climate system would be pushed beyond tipping points, setting in motion irreversible changes, including ice sheet disintegration with a continually adjusting shoreline, extermination of a substantial fraction of species on the planet, and increasingly devastating regional climate extremes ”.
Hi Andrew
Did you notice the New York Times had an article on the extreme weather events in the US on Saturday that was prompted by the recent ice-weather in Texas (-22 C) and Nebraska (-37 C).
They refer to ‘domino effect[s]’ or ‘tipping points’ seen in infrastructure in this article from the experiences America is having given that none of it is built for climate change and also in a poor state.
Literally one part breaks down and that in turn causes failures in other parts further down the line. It is the first time I have heard about these terms used beyond GHG feedback processes creating further warming and more GHG release (with all the other consequences like propensity for more wildfires).
Cost of this? Who knows, but likely to be a big load on any country’s economy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/climate/united-states-infrastructure-storms.html
Thanks George,
I published an article in Arctic News titled “Snowstorms, the breach of the Arctic vortex and the effects of ice melt water on the oceans” http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/search/label/Andrew%20Glikson
with a summary sent to P@I, indicating the freeze events in the US and Europe are the consequence of the breach of the Arctic jet stream boundary due to a relative equalization of temperatures between the Arctic and the top latitudes of the Norther hemisphere.
I will send you a copy.
Received with thanks. Looking forward to your article on here too.
Very interesting and thanks Brian. I doubt if Australia cares any longer for it’s international standing. Howard put paid to that with his illegal treatment of refugees, which has continued.
Australia, or should we say the LNP dictatorship, only cares for Murdoch and the US.
Like South Africa, sanctions or tarrifs, over climate will be the only thing that makes the LNP take pause.
The Antarctic Treaty sets aside all territorial claims in Antarctica. I’m pretty sure that under it, any other country would have the right to use the proposed Vestfold Hills strip, including China which has nearby bases and would find it very useful. They have the right under the Treaty to inspect all facilities at Davis, as Australia has to inspect their bases.
At one of the times when I was working at Mawson base, during the cold war, the Russians made one of their fairly regular visits using the ice airstrip there, and were made welcome as usual. I made tentative attempts to strike up a conversation in English with one of their party, asking him where he came from. His answer was “Boston.” He was a Harvard geologist, working with Russian geologists on Antarctic research.
In a place where nature can be such a formidable enemy, any human being is a welcome sight.
I also was a Mawson expedioner way back, Richard, and I’m sure your understanding of the Treaty is correct. The Antarctic has been as near as possible to a politics-free zone, with all territorial claims on ice (sorry, I couldn’t help that) and international cooperation in the few cases of health emergencies. There has been no need for such an airstrip until now (Mawson opened in 1954), but this may arise from some recent drum beating articles by ASPI. Our national interest would be far better served by ensuring the ongoing continuation of the Antarctic Treaty than by proceeding with this.
The proposed airport and the huge size of the new ship greatly enlarge our environmental footprint. Another reminder that Antarctic science has always run on jingoist money.
why? strategic expression or is it pandering to the tourism lobby while still in covid restrictions? An airport in western sydney is slated to cost only three times as much – though that’ll work out at a lot more, a great lot more if we include peripheral infrastructure. Flights from western sydney to antarctica? Just joking. I hope
Tourists flocking to see the continued ice melt due to global warming? You know it would not surprise me.