ABSTRACT
The Antarctic geopolitical exceptionalism – applied to both the region and the regime – that has so far zealously maintained and monitored the boundary between minerals, fisheries and bioprospecting resources in and of the Antarctic, is withering away slowly but surely. Much of the contemporary geopolitical discourse around 'Antarctic futures' is predicated on some kind of resource use inevitability, bordering determinism. A. Armstrong argues that they need "to sustain a sense of possibility" and explore the ways and means of resource in which "injustice might be ameliorated and equality promoted". The moral economy in the Antarctic, despite huge potential and enormous possibilities, remains entangled with highly convoluted political geographies of disputed ownership and contested territoriality. A major challenge facing the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties is to ensure that the public good principle remains paramount in any consensus-based negotiation of an Antarctic bioprospecting regime.
