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Japan's renunciation of territorial rights in Antarctica and Australian diplomacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Shirley V. Scott
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Abstract

By Article 2(e) of the 1951 Treaty of Peace, Japan renounced ‘all claim to any right or title to or interest in connection with any part of the Antarctic area.’ This paper traces the process by which Australian diplomacy ensured the inclusion of such a provision in the Treaty and assesses the contemporary significance of the article. While in the unlikely event of the breakdown of the Antarctic Treaty System, Japan would be legally entitled to make a territorial claim on the basis of activities undertaken between the conclusion of the Peace Treaty and the coming into force of the Antarctic Treaty, such a claim would likely be weak. It is more probable that the Japanese government would assert that, just as Japan had had no rights to renounce in Antarctica, neither had any of the Antarctic claimants complied adequately with the provisions in international law for territorial acquisition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 35 , Issue 193 , April 1999 , pp. 99 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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