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25. According to McNickle (1949:788) France had advised Britain of her territorial intentions 12

years earlier. Although the French claim was based on discovery, France did not lay claim to other areas of coastline discovered by French explorers. Indeed, French expeditions of 1903-05 and 1908-10 had been to the more accessible Palmer peninsula area (Hayton 1960b:375). The French claim was attached, initially, to the administrative dependencies o f the Government General o f Madagascar (Hayton 1960b:376). See also Hunter Miller (1927:508).

26. On the development o f US policy in this era see, inter alia, Shapley (1985), Quigg (1983:126- 141), Hayton (1960b:382-386).

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o f the Antarctic for the United States. Secret instructions were issued, encouraging expeditions to do whatever they might to assist a possible US claim.27 The revival of US interests in this period began with the Byrd expedition in 1928.28 His first expedition was followed by others in which Americans saw and mapped (and secretly claimed for the US) more o f the Antarctic than nationals o f any other state. This activity established the basis for later US assertions o f interest in the whole continent.

In 1939 Norway, concerned over an imminent German claim,29 formally asserted its sovereignty, based on exploration as well as commercial activity, over Dronning Maud Land.30 The Soviet Union, in its first expression o f Antarctic interest, formally refused to recognise the Norwegian claim and reserved judgement on the ownership o f land discovered by Russian explorers (Wolk 1958:44).

Argentina and Chile responded to northern hemisphere interest with claims o f their own, even though neither had been particularly active in the Antarctic to date.31 Their claims were made not on the basis o f discovery and exploration but on geographical contiguity and propinquity, and on rights o f legal inheritance derived from Spain. Under the Papal Bull o f 1493 (later confirmed by the Spanish-Portuguese Treaty o f Tordesillas in 1494) the world was divided between Spain and Portugal - Spain was

27. Records of claims were classified. None of the claims was formalised, but contributed to the development by the US government of its doctrine of "constructive occupation" - discovery followed by subsequent exploration by air or land, coupled with a formal claim to possession as well as other acts, such as administrative acts, short of actual and permanent settlement (Shapley

1985:46-7;67).

28. On 29 November 1928, Byrd and his crew were the first to fly over the South Pole, although Byrd was not flying the plane (Shapley 1985:34). The first flight in the Antarctic was on 16 November 1928, by the Australian Sir Hubert Wilkins.

29. In 1938-39 Hermann Goerring sent Captain Alfred Richster on the catapult-sip Schwabenland to the Antarctic to carry out an aerial mapping expedition. German planes mapped 350,000 square miles of the continent and dropped swastika claim markers (Mitchell 1981:69). German rights to the Antarctic had been renounced in Article 118 of the Versailles Treaty after World War I (Hunter Miller 1927:508). No such requirement was made after WW1I, although earlier German activity was not followed up by either of the two post-war Germanies in the immediate post-war period..

30. Norway had already claimed Bouvet Island in 1928 and Peter I Island, west of the Peninsula, in 1931. The basis of these claims had been Norway’s extensive whaling activities in the area. Norway’s claim to the mainland is to the coast and hinterland only; its southern and northern boundaries are undefined. One reason for this is that the ‘sector principle’ is not advantageous to Norway in the Arctic, and so Norway has wished to avoid giving it credibility by using it in the Antarctic (Quigg 1983:112) even though that principle is generally thought inappropriate for the Antarctic. Neverthless Norway does recognise the British, Australian, New Zealand and French Antarctic claims which do utilise the sector principle (although they do not, technically, adopt the contiguous and continuous basis that applies in the Arctic).

31. The Chilean press referred to the 1946 Byrd expedition as "an armed invasion of Chilean territory" (Anon 1947:97).

given the New World, including undiscovered lands, which included the then unknown Antarctic.32

The Chilean claim, which substantially overlapped British territory, was promulgated by Presidential Decree in 1940. The President argued that his decree did not establish a new claim, but served only to define Chile’s historical rights in the Antarctic. Japan responded with a diplomatic note reserving all Japanese rights in the Antarctic.33 Chile did not send an expedition to the Antarctic until 1947.34

Argentina’s assertion o f sovereignty over the area also claimed by Chile and Britain, is usually dated to 1943 although, as Hayton notes (1960b:379) "as a matter o f principle Argentina has not issued any formal claims document. Title ... is viewed as original and continuous from the beginning o f the Republic".35

Thus by WWII there were seven claims to 85 percent o f the Antarctic. The overlapping o f some o f the claims, and the refusal by some some states to acknowledge the validity o f any o f the claims, was a source o f potential tension.

In the years after the Second World War political interests dominated the Antarctic debate. As claimant states sought to assert their sovereign rights, and as the new bipolarity o f the post-war international order, dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union, extended even to the Southern polar region the potential for conflict grew. Hayton (1956:590) refers to the "concerted - though not yet bellicose - rivalry" of this period, which was characterised by "an increase in the vigor and size o f exploration programs, in the number o f bases manned, and in the frequency o f nationalistic declarations".36

32. See Hayton (1956) for a good and (then) contemporary discussion of the Argentinian and Chilean claims. For a discussion on the involvement and attitudes of other South American states, see Clark (1988) and Child (1988a).

33. At Australia’s insistence, Japan was required to renounce all claims and rights to the Antarctic in the San Fransisco Peace Treaty of 1951 (Article 2e of Chapter II).

34. This expedition established a base in the South Shetlands named ‘Soberania’ - sovereignty (McNickle 1949:787). The Chilean claim followed a commissioned study of Chile’s titles by Professor Escudero Guzman of the University of Chile.

35. The boundaries of the claim are set, apparently, by a Presidential decree of September 1946 which prohibits publication of Argentinian maps without all of the claimed territories as set forth in that decree (see Hayton 1960b:379). Hayton (1956:587) notes that the first official Argentinian assertion of sovereignty may have come with a note to the Universal Postal Union in 1927. In 1942 Argentina sent its first formal expedition to Antarctica although there had been annual relief voyages to an Argentinian meteorological station in the South Orkneys since 1904. That station was established by a Scotsman, William A Bruce, but was handed over to Argentina when he failed to gain support from the British government

36. The claimant states habitually sent diplomatic notes to any non-claimant state sending an expedition to their territory, offering facilities or granting permission to visit, or reminding them of the territorial status if overflight was planned (see Maquieira 1986:50).

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Conflict was most likely between the three overlapping claimants, Argentina, Britain and Chile. Although Argentina and Chile had been unable to reach a boundary agreement on their claims they nevertheless agreed that there was a South American Antarctic and that they were the only countries with exclusive rights o f sovereignty over it.37 A British suggestion in 1947 that the competing claims be submitted to the International Court of Justice for arbitration and settlement was therefore rejected.38

The British naval operation Tabarin o f 1944-45 was intended to reinforce British presence as a counter to that o f Argentina and Chile.39 Argentina revived its Antarctic Commission in the 1940s, and in the 1946-47 and 1947-48 seasons both Argentina and Chile sent expeditions into the area also claimed by Britain. The British government formally protested at these alleged acts o f trespass.40 The potential for conflict was tempered somewhat when the three governments agreed, in the 1949 Tripartite Naval Agreement, not to send warships south o f 60* South latitude.41

Both superpowers were active in the Antarctic after WWII. In 1946 the Soviet whaling flotilla, Slava, accompanied by Soviet scientists, appeared in the Southern Ocean.42 In 1946-47 the United States despatched 13 ships and over 4000 service personnel to the Antarctic on Operation Highjump to train personnel and test equipment under polar conditions (with an eye to possible conflict in the Arctic). Secretary o f State Acheson urged the expedition to take steps which might assist the US in supporting a claim of sovereignty 43 The Navy conducted coastline mapping operations and photographed an

37. This agreement followed discussions in March 1941 between the heads of their Antarctic Commissions (see Hayton 1956:586) confirmed by later discussions in 1948. Agreement was difficult because any settlement of boundaries would have implications for the dispute between them over the Beagle Channel. The US had also proposed a Pan-American sphere of influence in the Antarctic but interest in this waned as US interest in maintaining an influence over the whole continent grew. Hayton (1960b:385) has characterised this as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine to that part of Antarctica in the Western Hemisphere, motivated by the challenge of the Axis powers and the war in Europe.

38. Britain reiterated this suggestion in 1951, 1953 and 1954 and in 1955 made a unilateral application for arbitration which was subsequently dropped.

39. Tabarin, which established bases on the Antarctic Peninsula, was subsequently transformed into the Falklands Islands Dependency Survey, which was the forerunner of the present day British Antarctic Survey, responsible for Britain’s scientific activity in the Antarctic (see Headland 1989:310).

40. The then recently retired Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, England, referred to Argentina and Chile as the "two open usurpers" (Bertram 1958:7). Another British author had described "barefaced Argentinian and Chilean claim-jumping" (Illingworth 1953:551).

41. This agreement was renewed annually until the late 1950s. See Auburn (1982:84) and Beck (1986b:34).

42. This followed Soviet ratification of the International Whaling Convention.

estimated 60 percent o f the Antarctic coastline (one-quarter o f which had not been