Attainment of consultative status by parties to the Antarctic Treaty: past, present and future

Antarctica is governed through consensus-based decision-making by the 29 Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty. Another 28 ‘non-Consultative Parties’ have acceded to the Treaty and agreed to be bound by its principles and the decisions of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) yet cannot participate in decision-making. Through the Treaty, acceding Parties can attain consultative status by demonstrating ‘substantial scientific research activity’ in Antarctica. Seventeen Parties have done so, with the Czech Republic the most recent in 2014. Since then, Venezuela, Belarus and Canada have made multiple unsuccessful bids to attain consultative status, representing an unprecedented failure rate. To understand this change, we determined the recent academic output of the five most recent Consultative Parties and the ten non-Consultative Parties currently most engaged in Antarctic affairs. We also examined how the ten non-Consultative Parties weighed up against other indicators that may be relevant to attainment of consultative status, such as organisational memberships (including the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs) and Treaty system engagement. We found that the very low levels of academic output deemed acceptable >20 years ago no longer appear sufficient to acquire consultative status. However, a number of non-Consultative Parties appear well-placed to attain consultative status once current wider geopolitical tensions have abated. In the meantime, there is a risk that if states feel there is no effective mechanism to attain a voice in Antarctic governance, then the legitimacy of the Treaty system may be called into question.