| Summary: | The autbor works as advisor in the Department of International Law of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Since 2004 he has concentrated i. a. on the issues of international status of the Antarctica. As the deputy head of the Czech delegation he participated in the 27th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Cape Town in 2004 and in the 28th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Stockholm in 2005. In his article the author compares his practical experience with legal texts in the field of the institutions, whether international, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations or international organs of the Antarctic Treaty System. The purpose of the article is to assist in the orientation in the activities of selected institutions. In Czech literature on international law such text has been missing to date. The author presents the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ACTM) as the most important organ of the Antarctic Treaty System. The meetings convene once a year in the form of two-week international conferences. The division of the parties to the Treaty into consultative and non-consultative parties is projected also into the unequal status of ACTM participants. While the consultative parties have full voting rights and may participate in all sessions, the non-consultative participants (incl. the Czech Republic) have only the status of observers. However, since the Czech Republic has been performing scientific activities in the Antarctic in recent years in the form of expeditions and, last but not least, by the construction of a scientific station on James Ross Islands, it is possible to assume that in the course of the next five years it will apply for consultative status in the Antarctic Treaty System. The Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) was founded by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty of 1991 (Madrid Protocol). Like in case of ATCM also the CEP meetings are participated in by the states of different legal status. Full members of CEP ...
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