Accidents in Antarctica

• Main Authors: Haverkamp, Abby, Siegfried, Alina, Genevieve, Murrell, Rooney, Nadia, Salamaca, Ricardo
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14344

The Antarctic Treaty has been in existence for over 40 years now, and the Environmental Protocol for a decade. Yet both of these documents fail to specifically address the issue of accident liability. The Treaty does extensively address precautionary measures to be taken, and the five existing Annexes all provide guidelines on various activities that have been recognised as having the potential to cause environmental harm. Other documents, such as the Protocol and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, also take a precautionary approach, and until now clean up processes following accidents in Antarctica have been supported by international cooperation in accordance with the principles of the Since 1993, there have been discussions on introducing a sixth Annex to the Protocol, covering liability in the Antarctic Treaty area. In developing this Annex several issues and definitions have been explored, including what defines an environmentally damaging incident and which scenarios could cause significant lasting damage. The development of Annex VI has been complicated by differing political views held by Treaty Consultative Parties, and by complexities in defining how strict and comprehensive the Annex should be. After many years of discussion, it was decided in 2001 that the legal regime to establish liability procedures should be produced gradually with one specific area of liability dealt with at a time. Therefore, Annex VI is to address only the issue of liability arising from environmental emergencies, and additional annexes, once completed, would further outline legal obligations both before and after an accident, as well as compensation obligations in monetary or other terms. A completed Annex VI is to be tabled at the XXVI ATCM in Madrid this year. The Antarctic Treaty has been in existence for over 40 years now, and the Environmental Protocol for a decade. Yet both of these documents fail to specifically address the issue of accident liability. The Treaty does extensively ...