ABSTRACT
In February 1947 Admiral Richard Byrd used a flight over the South Pole – this was made as part of Operation Highjump (1946–7) – to drop ‘a cardboard box containing multi-colored little flags of the United Nations’ as an obvious symbolism’ of his desire for international harmony in Antarctica, perhaps achieved under the umbrella of the UN[ 1 ]. However, neither this gesture nor subsequent inter-governmental exchanges conducted during the late 1940s regarding an international solution for Antarctica resulted in any real UN role, and it was not until the close of 1983 that the UN performed any substantial action in respect to the region. On 15 December 1983 the UN General Assembly, acting upon the basis of debates in the First Committee, adopted a draft resolution on ‘The Question of Antarctica’, which requested the Secretary-General to prepare a study ‘on all aspects of Antarctica’, thereby providing the basis not only for debate in the 1984 Assembly session but also for attempts to modify the relationship between the Antarctic Treaty System and the international community[ 2 ]. The impact of this episode was reinforced by the wider framework of Antarctic developments during the early 1980s, since the moves at the UN in New York provided a new dimension to the search for external accommodation with governments and international organisations upon the part of the Antarctic Treaty System as a whole and of the proposed minerals regime in particular.
