| Summary: | Call after call has been made over many years for more international regulation - in many different flavours - to limit the number of Antarctic tourists. The authors remain unconvinced by this approach. This report describes the weaknesses of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) and the challenges it will face as the number of tourists visiting Antarctica increases. It is shown that regulation of tourism operators under the ATS, as proposed in literature, is legally ambiguous and is unlikely to be enacted and/or enforced. The most likely evolution of regulation in this area is no regulation at all. An alternative evolutionary model of regulation is examined, where the tourism industry itself develops policies and procedures which maintain an authentic Antarctic tourist experience, based on a healthy Antarctic environment, the two being interdependent. The authors have adopted the term “emergent regulation’’ to describe a situation where regulatory and enforcement systems arise spontaneously to meet operators’ needs (and thus their customers’ demands) and to preserve their long term economic interests.
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