Ice-Covered Areas: The Competing Interests Of Conservation and Resource Exploitation

• Main Authors: Kindt, John Warren, Parriott, Todd Jay
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Digital USD 1984
• Subjects: Law; Antarctic; Arctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Law of the Sea; ice covered areas
• Online Access: https://digital.sandiego.edu/sdlr/vol21/iss5/2; https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1714&context=sdlr

This Article examines the various issues surrounding the exploitation of ice-covered areas. The author examines the resource potential of these areas, as well as the economic and environmental implications of resource exploitation in these areas. The author argues that hypersensitivity of the environment and ecology in these areas requires some minimal legal safeguards to prevent potentially irreversible damage. The author suggests that the legal regime which would best protect the ice-covered areas is that of an international marine sanctuary, but that such a regime is probably not attainable due to increasing worldwide pressure for commercial exploitation of the areas' valuable resources. The author further argues that the Antarctic Treaty regime, supplemented by conservation and development agreements, should govern the Antarctic, and that the Arctic should be governed by the general principles of the Convention on the Law of the Sea relating to closed and semi-enclosed areas and supplemented by regional agreements among the Arctic coastal States.