| Summary: | Within the first volume of the IMLI Manual of International Maritime Law, dedicated to the law of the sea, this chapter on the legal regime of the Antarctic offers a contemporary reflection on all the main international law sources regulating the sea of the sixth continent, the so called Southern Ocean, or Antarctic Ocean. This evolving international legal system, developed on the basis of the successful cooperation efforts of the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) and founded on the Washington Treaty (1959), is now facing complex, new challenges, from the new navigation perspectives opened because of climate change to the exploitation of Antarctic micro-organisms in the framework of the international protection of biological diversity. Is the Antarctic Treaty system an "objective international law regime" capable of answering to these new challenges and to constantly re-interpret the common interest in the protection of Antarctica and its seas, in the light of the overall development of international law, and of the international law of the sea in particular?
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