Surrounded by potted palm trees, the 12 delegations including the Soviet Union invited to participate by the United States government decided, over the course of six intense weeks, the legal, political and scientific future of the Antarctic continent and surrounding seas. Thanks in part to the neatly typed entries of Brian Roberts, the Foreign Office's polar advisor for many years; we have at least one source that vividly conveys (from the perspective of a British delegate of course) the febrile atmosphere surrounding the conference (see King and Savours 1995; Dodds 2008). Notwithstanding the achievements of the recently completed 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year and its extension the International Geophysical Co-operation (1959), there was no reason to presume that an Antarctic Treaty would be recognised as legitimate and sufficiently robust to accommodate all the parties concerned. Indeed, it is not uncommon to read in the reports prepared by the delegates for their domestic political leaders, a whole series of counter-factual possibilities if the negotiations failed to secure a modus vivendi for the polar region. We may not assume, therefore, that it was in any way inevitable that a treaty (lasting now for over fifty years) would have emerged when the delegates sat down to discuss the future of Antarctica in October 1959. The treaty was nearly not ratified in Argentina for example because of the anger felt by some political leaders about Article IV and what they considered the ‘giving away’ of Argentine sovereign rights.

2009 brings not only the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty but also the end of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) and of its extension into the period of International Geophysical Cooperation (IGC 1959). It is also the 133rd anniversary of K. Weyprecht's suggestion that initiated the impetus. As he noted, ‘if Polar Expeditions are looked upon merely as a sort of international steeple-chase . . . and their main object is to exceed by a few miles the latitude reached by a predecessor these mysteries (of Meteorology and Geomagnetism) will remain unsolved’ (Weyprecht 1875). Although he stressed the importance of observations in both the Arctic and Antarctic during the first International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882–1883 only two stations in the sub-Antarctic region, at Cap Horn and South Georgia, made such scientific recordings. In spite of the fact that several expeditions to the Antarctic had been made in the period between the first and the second IPY 1932–1933, no stations were created in Antarctica during that IPY. The major increase in scientific studies in Antarctica came with the third IPY, which became the IGY of 1957–1958.

Recent media coverage of the threatened collapse of the vast Wilkins ice shelf highlights the manner in which the established focus on global warming and the ozone hole has led Antarctica to be well and truly accepted as playing an integral role in global environmental systems. By contrast, histories of the 1950 and 1960s continue still to treat Antarctica largely as, to quote Philip Quigg (1983), ‘a Pole Apart’, that is a marginal region struggling for inclusion on most world maps. Despite the occasional newsworthy item, like the 1952 Anglo-Argentine clash at Hope Bay (Beck 1987: 18–21) or the 1955–1958 British Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary 1958), Antarctic affairs have not been regarded, except perhaps in Argentina, Australia, Chile and New Zealand, as sufficiently mainstream during the 1950s and 1960s to warrant inclusion in national or global histories covering that period. As a result, it remains easy still to gloss over the 1959 Antarctic Treaty as possessing rather limited contemporary significance, and hence to dismiss it as a limited purpose agreement confined to a relatively marginal area. Indeed, for some commentators, the treaty was even interpreted as a lost opportunity in terms of failing either to internationalise the region or to resolve the longstanding Antarctic sovereignty problem.

The Antarctic Treaty was adopted by twelve nations in Washington, DC on 1 December 1959 with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind. Seven of these nations asserted territorial claims, including the overlapping claims of Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom in the Antarctic Peninsula. The five other nations were non-claimants, including the United States and Soviet Union (now Russian Federation), which reserved rights to press claims in the future.

Like many great institutions, the Antarctic Treaty system has its own creation myth, according to which it was brought into being by the Antarctic science programme of the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY). As myths are prone to do, this one combines both an important truth and a good deal of misinformation. After fifty years in which it has shamelessly flattered the earth scientists, who are understandably rather fond of it, and undervalued the many non-scientists who advocated the internationalisation of Antarctica from 1910 onwards, it is time to lay it to rest. But before summarising the intermeshing contributions of private citizens, diplomats and other officials, and scientists, we should first take note of a different factor altogether, political geography.

Australia has extensive interests in, and has taken a long term interest over, Antarctica. These interests include a territorial claim to the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT) encompassing 42 per cent of the continent. In addition to its interests as a claimant state Australian participated in the negotiation of the Antarctic Treaty and has devoted itself to a major role in the Antarctic Treaty system (ATS), firmly committing to upholding the twin pillars of the Treaty: ‘peace’ and ‘science’.

Since the Antarctic Treaty was negotiated in 1959, it has undergone major substantive legal transformations as it grew into a multifaceted regime known as the Antarctic Treaty system. Many of those transformations stemmed from actions by the principal decision makers, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs), as they adopted new strategies and values alongside binding legal agreements for managing their activities in circumpolar southern waters. This essay examines the evolution of the modern law of the sea and seeks to explain how it embellished (has it at times challenged?) the character, significance and purposes of the Antarctic Treaty.

Sovereignty was and still remains one of the principal reasons for human endeavour in Antarctica. The ‘Heroic Era’ of Antarctic exploration was designed principally to seek out not only new lands including the South Pole, but also to assert territorial claims on behalf of the sovereign who sponsored these expeditions. The ‘planting of the flag’ was therefore just as much a crucial component of Antarctic discovery, as also was the conduct of science. Sovereignty and science remained twin pillars of Antarctic endeavour throughout the early part of the twentieth century, and whilst the region escaped the horrors of World War II, it did not take long after the war for Antarctic endeavours to resume on both fronts. In a decade of frantic diplomatic activity during the 1950s, which was highlighted by the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year and the 1959 Washington Conference, there was also the prospect in 1956 of a case before the International Court of Justice between Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom over the contested status of territorial claims on the Antarctic Peninsula. Notwithstanding that by this time all of the current claims to the continent had by then been asserted, there had also been moves made by India in 1956 and then again in 1958 to reconsider the management of the continent with a view to its internationalisation under a framework created by the United Nations General Assembly.

Louis-Philippe-Robert, Duc d'Orléans (1869–1926), the Orléans claimant to the French throne, mounted four private expeditions to the Arctic, in 1904, 1905, 1907, and 1909. During the first of these, on board his private yacht, Maroussia, and accompanied by his wife, Marie Dorothée, he visited Svalbard where he hunted reindeer while his wife, an accomplished amateur artist, executed a number of delightful paintings. In 1905 he chartered the ice strengthened Belgica and employed Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery as her captain; he also recruited an impressive group of scientists. He again visited Svalbard then pushed west through the pack ice to east Greenland. He was able to penetrate further north along that coast than his predecessors, the Germans under Koldewey in Germania, had in 1869–1870, and discovered and named Île-de-France and the Belgica Bank. He shot large numbers of polar bears. In 1907, again on board Belgica, and again with de Gerlache in command of the ship, and again with a contingent of scientists on board, Orléans headed out into the Kara Sea from Matochkin Shar. Belgica soon became beset in the pack ice and drifted slowly south with the ice to emerge through Karskie Vorota after a very frustrating month. Thereafter an attempt to reach Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa was foiled by heavy ice. Finally, in 1909, again on board Belgica under de Gerlache's command, Orléans visited Jan Mayen, east Greenland, Svalbard and Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, with hunting as his primary aim. From all four expeditions Orléans brought back substantial numbers of skins of birds and mammals that were mounted and displayed in his private museums. On his death they were bequeathed to the French people and exhibited in the specially built Musée du Duc d'Orléans in Paris and later in the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle. The scientific data and specimens collected by the scientists on the 1905 and 1907 expeditions resulted in a substantial number of scientific reports in their various fields.

This article is an exploration and description of the inter-subjective character of human and non-human relationships. Recent research into animism shows that at present there is emerging a new ontology that breaks down barriers between human beings and animals, culture and nature. This new animism predominantly discusses how human persons relate to the world. The culture of many indigenous groups is animistic meaning that nature is alive and there is a social space for humans and non-humans to interrelate to each other. In this article, an attempt is made to describe in detail how Sami reindeer herders perceive their environment and how the interplay and dialogue with nature is integrated in the overall activities of Sami within this relationship.

A living being co-exists within certain environmental conditions and is dependent on all other beings with which she/he is in relationship. In this sense one can speak about ‘inter-subjectivity’ meaning direct subject-to-subject sharing of presence. It will be shown that the relationship between humans and non-humans is highly context-bound. Furthermore, the relationship between humans and non-humans within the Sami cultural circles is based on the mutual caretaking, respect and conditioning within different groups. For instance, the reindeer give themselves to humans and humans give shelter to them. According to the Sami world view, there are many different kinds of persons, such as humans, animals and spirits. To be a person in an animistic sense is a very flexible way of existence and one has to learn to know what the different personhoods are about. In this context, it is important to understand the role and function of the landscape and certain places and features within the landscape in specific areas. This is because within these places, communication, and what will be referred to as mythic discourse, takes place between humans and non-humans, and this dialogue is known to be of benefit to human beings in their daily lives and activities.

The fur seal population of the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, was intensively hunted by sealers from the discovery of the islands in 1819 to the early 1820s, by which time the seal numbers were so depleted that sealing became uneconomic. Sealing was revived for both fur seals and elephant seals at several periods later in the century. Sealers were put ashore in gangs and built makeshift shelters in which to live, and also occupied caves. Many of these have been identified on the various islands of the South Shetlands, and a number have been excavated. The paper addresses some of the management issues facing the conservation of these sites, which include accelerating tourism, disturbance by scientific researchers, disturbance by animal activity, burial or erosion by drifting sand, and climate change.

Griffith Taylor (1880–1963) was a scientific member of the Terra Nova expedition. Although he published initially on his geomorphological, glaciological and meteorological research, conducted between 1910 and 1912, he was also a teacher, lecturer, publicist and later political commentator on Antarctica. Initially a loyal ‘Britisher’ he developed an internationalist perspective on Antarctica without compromising his self-promotional ambitions. Through his professional career in Australia, the US and Canada over the early to mid twentieth century Antarctica's shifting scientific, cultural and political history can be mapped. Just as self-interest permeated the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, so Taylor's ambitions persisted as he fashioned himself into a scientific prophet for peace. Taylor's Antarctica, an amalgam of sentiment and science, rivalry and cooperation, imperialism and internationalism, popular culture and global politics, was the twentieth century's Antarctica.

Security policy challenges in the high north should be approached both as an insight into the international legal framework on which co-existence in the region rests and as a sober realpolitik analysis. Against this background, the objective of this article is to paint a more balanced picture of security policy options in Norway's Arctic waters, rather than observing contemporary general discourse on the topic might suggest. Management of marine resources, delimitation of unresolved maritime boundaries and relations with Russia in the northern maritime areas are used as examples to substantiate our main thesis which is that dispassionate diplomacy is more likely to resolve disputes than is military confrontation.

The first woman to work as a professional scientist in Antarctica was Mariya Vasilyevna Klyonova, during the first Soviet Antarctic Expedition of 1955–1957. Other women were crew members on the icebreakers Lena and Ob’. There is an outside possibility that there was more to one of them than meets the eye. But we shall never know.

A breeding colony of ivory gulls was discovered on an ice floe in northeast Greenland in August 2008. The ice floe resembled nearby islands in that it was covered with a thick layer of gravely moraine, and furthermore its position was fixed throughout most of the breeding season as the surrounding first year ice only broke up in mid August when most of the gull chicks had fledged.