Détente between East and West has now (happily) become so commonplace that it is hard at this remove to recapture the impact made by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. At the height of the Cold War the two major power blocs agreed, in the wake of the International Geophysical Year, that, instead of extending the arms race and other forms of competition into the Antarctic, they would prohibit its use for military purposes, put conflicting territorial and other claims into “deep freeze” (the pun is unavoidable) and generally co-operate in their scientific activities in the area. But the Treaty is not just an important milestone in the history of East-West relations: the Antarctic is a vast continent of ice-covered land bounded by frozen sea, which plays a major part in the environmental balance of our planet and contains potentially huge resources of harvestable living organisms and minerals. On the negative side, the potential for disaster through military conflict or mismanagement is considerable.

Over the years, the basic Treaty has been supplemented by further agreements and resolutions dealing with such matters as the conservation of living resources, the regulation of mineral resource activities, and environmental protection. But there has been controversy. In particular, although the regime is not confined to those with territorial claims, essentially a state has to be involved in activities in the Antarctic before it is permitted to become a party. In recent years a majority of members of the United Nations, most of whom do not have the means to involve themselves in Antarctic activities, have become unhappy about this, declaring that the area should be regarded as part of the “common heritage of mankind” and regulated under the auspices of the UN rather than just the Treaty states. Environmental pressure groups have also become increasingly active, one of the results of which is the recent ban on mining. In short, this is a technically complex and politically sensitive subject, in some respects a microcosm of international law, throwing up basic theoretical issues as well as questions on such substantive topics as the law of the sea, jurisdiction and the acquisition of sovereignty.