| Summary: | The Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) is an advisory body established as part of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) in accordance with Article 11 of The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol or ‘The Protocol’). This report will discuss the committee’s advisory role to Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM), the cross-over between being an advisory committee and an environmental advocate, how the committee’s existence and actions have related to other environmental issues and developments in the Antarctic, and its relationship to other groups. Three examples will be reviewed to judge the effectiveness of the CEP in terms of remediating past environmental damage at the joint United States and New Zealand base remains at Cape Hallett, dealing with the controversial proposal to drill into Lake Vostok as well as area and species management. Clearly there are a broad range of environmentally related policies, programmes and activities occurring in Antarctica that are linked, or in some cases not linked, to the work of the CEP. The CEP’s own analysis of issues it perceives as being relevant as it moves forward will then be discussed. This report draws on ATCM and CEP meeting records, working papers and other related material. In preparing this report Dr Neil Gilbert kindly spent an hour with syndicate members discussing CEP related developments and issues currently being worked on by the committee.
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