Non-state actors in the Antarctic treaty system : making heresy orthodox
Creators: name: Darby, Andrew
Publisher: name: University Of Tasmania
Year: 2023

description: In the period 1988-9, Antarctica's previously little troubled governing regime, the Antarctic Treaty System, descended into the most significant discord in its history with the rejection of the agreed Convention to Regulate Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities and its eventual replacement by the Protocol on Environment Protection containing a limited mining ban. This study argues that non-state actors were the driving force behind the defeat of CRAMRA. These actors, in the form of environment promotion nongovernment organisations, successfully substituted many of the objectives they sought, which were at odds with the regime and encapsulated in the notion of a \world park\". The study focusses on the role of non-state actors in the world today. It examines who they are in the Antarctic context and what attributes may prove important in their exercise of influence over the Antarctic Treaty System. It then uses the case study described above to test which attributes proved important in the exercise of influence in this period. Finally it considers what cautionary lesson lies therein for the operation of international regimes. It is the thesis of this work that under some circumstances non-state actors can be a decisive influence in forcing a change upon states acting together in an international regime. This conflicts with the political Realist's view that only states actually possess the power to accomplish political change and non-state actors can do little more than encourage new directions. Instead it aligns with the political Rationalist's belief that allows non-state actors to be a customary part of the action in decisions made by international regimes. This study argues that it was the \"heretics\" outside the ATS who gained legitimacy with the wider public and through individual government apparatuses. In contrast the ATS which brought CRAMRA to fruition in a closed and little known negotiating process failed to have this convention approved because it lacked legitimacy. The ATS found that the world was prepared to adopt the non-state alternative. The work begins with a theoretical review of authorities' views on non-state actors their links with international regimes and the state system of government. It continues with what is believed to be the first attempt to catalogue non-state actors involved with the ATS a process that is carried out along a common typology. The case study is then examined in two distinct phases divided by the watershed of the agreement of CRAMRA. In the first phase we see the rise of environmentalism and non-state interest in Antarctica paralleling the rise of CRAMRA. In the second phase the death of CRAMRA and birth of the Protocol on Environment Protection are examined through the prism of non-state activity in a sequence of five key countries. Finally the study draws conclusions about the methods of change employed by non-state actors attributes that made some of them more influential than others and the overall influence of non-state actors on states in the ATS."