Future of Antarctica

Archive Report

Recent Tensions in Area

Link Between the Falklands and Antarctica

Great britain and Argentina both claim sovereignty over the same portion of land in the extreme southern Atlantic Ocean. The dispute over the sovereignty of this area has been going on for most of the century, and several times during the last 30 years the two nations nearly came to blows over the issue. The contested real estate in this case is not the Falkland Islands, but Antarctica—the world's most isolated and forbidding continent.

Five other nations—Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand and Norway—also claim a slice of the Antarctic pie. Only a unique international agreement, the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, has kept the sovereignty question from causing troublesome international problems. Under the treaty, which was drawn up ...

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