ABSTRACT
As early as the mid-1970s, most of those in the international community who dealt with Antarctica realized that the potential of Antarctic resources would drive Antarctic diplomacy for years, perhaps decades, regardless of whether the Southern Ocean fish ermen caught 1, 10, or 100 million tons per year, or whether offshore oil was systematically sought or found. Tensions were mounting over sovereign rights to minerals within the group of Antarctic Treaty nations, with at least one claimant state insisting that its ownership be recognized by the others before it would participate in talks on minerals. With comparable emotion, others outside the treaty circle called on the United Nations to sweep away what they deemed an obsolete and fragile treaty in favor of equal rights for all nations in Antarctica—much as the groaning, fissuring winter sea ice around the continent is forced to melt away each October with the arrival of the austral spring.
