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Abstract:
Long neglected in terms of international governance and management, the Arctic is slowly attracting greater attention as a region in need of an effective regime. Whilst the Arctic is not plagued by unresolved territorial disputes, there is the spectre of rising tension over yet to be asserted maritime claims over the vast Arctic Ocean. When this issue is added to the growing alarm over the impact of climate change upon the Arctic, which brings with it not only associated significant environmental change but also increased access within the region, it becomes clear that a region which for all of the Twentieth Century was pushed to the side when it came to the regulation of international affairs has the potential to take centre stage as state interests are awoken and global concerns advance. This paper reviews some of these recent developments with a particular focus upon outer continental shelf claims to the Arctic Ocean, navigational rights and freedoms within the Northeast and Northwest Passage, and the development of the Arctic Council. It argues that the circumstances are ripe for the development of an Arctic Treaty, borrowing from some of the concepts and principles which have been adopted in Antarctica.

Arctic, International Law, Arctic Treaty, Outer Continental Shelf, Navigation

Abstract:
In 2009, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. Over its fifty-year existence the Treaty and the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) built upon it, have promoted freedom of scientific research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Despite the many successes of the Antarctic legal regime, there has been growing disquiet over the conduct by Japan, an Antarctic Treaty party, of its 'special permit' whaling program in the Southern Ocean. This program now has a lengthy history stretching back to the late 1980s, and has been undertaken purportedly in reliance on the 1946 International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling, which allows whaling for scientific purposes in limited circumstances. It has also been pursued on the assumption that the global whaling regime takes priority over the disciplines imposed by the regionally-focussed Antarctic Treaty System which seeks, among other things, to promote scientific research in Antarctica and to protect the Antarctic ecosystem. This article examines the interaction between the Antarctic and whaling regimes and argues that the main environmental text in the ATS, the 1991 Environmental Protocol, imposes obligations upon Japan to minimise or eliminate the environmental risks of its burgeoning Southern Ocean whaling program.

Public international law, Antarctica and Southern Ocean, regulation of whaling, Antarctic Treaty System, protection of the Antarctic environment

Abstract:
This is a chapter on Australia for a forthcoming book that will provide a comparative perspective on the role of domestic courts in enforcing treaties. The book will be published by Cambridge University Press.