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Who owns Antarctica?

by Catherine Bodry (RSS feed) on Oct 18th 2007 at 10:27AM

According to a report from Reuters, Britain plans to submit a claim to the United Nations to extend its Antarctic territory by a million square kilometers. However, the claim could cause tension between Britain and a few South American countries -- Argentina is working on a proposal to the U.N. which covers the same territory. The British claim also conflicts with the spirit of 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which prevents all exploitation of oil, gas, and minerals, other than for scientific research.

May 13, 2009 is the deadline for claims that will divide up 7 million square kilometers (the size of Australia). Russia, Australia, France, and Brazil are among the few that have made claims thus far.

Filed under: Antarctica, France, United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Ecotourism

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jamie Rhein Oct 18th 2007 12:40PM

This post is timely. I just finished having a conversation this morning about Antartica with my adult ESL students. We were actually talking about proper nouns and Antartica came up. They wanted to know how it is governed. Now I have an answer. How's that for quick service?

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