Abstract:

The Antarctic has been under restriction of the Antarctic Treaty System including Antarctic Treaty as its core and other related agreements since Antarctic Treaty took effect in 1961. Nevertheless, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS, hereafter be shorted as Convention) established the legal regime for continental shelf and requested coastal state to complete the delineation of the outer limits of continental shelf beyond 200NM within ten years upon its ratification of the convention. Since the Convention entered into force in 1994, Australia, Norway, Argentina and UK have successively and respectively claimed their sovereign rights over the continental shelves in the south of 60°S, namely the Antarctic region. Based on such background, the paper assesses the continental shelf submissions and preliminary information made by seven countries claiming territorial sovereignty or sovereign rights to the Antarctic region, and reviews the consideration and recommendations made by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Following the above analysis, the paper scrutinizes the legal basis for continental shelf claims to the Antarctic region, and investigates the conflicts between the Antarctic Treaty System and the Convention. Meanwhile, the paper discusses the trend of legal regime development regarding the Antarctic region.

Key words: Antarctic Treaty System, United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, Delimitation of the Continental Shelf, Legal Regime, Conflict