Looking South: Australia's Antarctic Agenda.

• Author: Triggs, Gillian
• Position: Book review

Lorne K Kriwoken, Julia Jabour & Alan D Hemmings (eds), Looking South: Australia's Antarctic Agenda (Federation Press, 2007, AUS$49.95, ISBN 9781862876576, 249 pages)

This collection of essays provides an examination of the pursuit by Australia of its Antarctic agenda, both nationally and internationally. The work is particularly timely as it was published only shortly before the unprecedented restraint order against whaling made by the Federal Court of Australia in Humane Society International Inc v Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd [2008] FCA 3 ('Human Society') of 15 January 2008.

Australia has sought to achieve its Antarctic objectives through the Antarctic Treaty System ('ATS') of December 1959, and which, over the last nearly 50 years, has proved to be one of the success stories of international law and institution building. The Humane Society case demonstrates, by contrast, that in addition to its international strategy of cooperation, Australian legislation might also be applied directly to the Australian Antarctic Territory ('AAT'), a strategy that has hitherto been avoided in respect of non-nationals. In issuing a restraint order against whaling in Australia's Whale Sanctuary in the Exclusive Economic Zone ('EEZ') of the AAT, Allsop J of the Federal Court applied the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth of Australia) ('EPBC Act'). He was able to do so with the imprimatur of a new Australian Government overturning the objections of the former Attorney General that the issue was non-justiciable.

The Federal Court decision, while perfectly valid under the EPBC Act, poses an international dilemma for Australia and illustrates the tension between international law and domestic laws. The central problem for Australia is that its claim to sovereignty in Antarctica, and hence its right to regulate whaling in Antarctic waters, are not recognised by the overwhelming majority of states in the international community. Indeed, only the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France and Norway recognise Australia's claim. The Antarctic Treaty (1) and the interlinked system of conventions and recommendations that make up the ATS has proved to be an endurable means of avoiding the sovereignty question, allowing states with interests in Antarctica to engage in scientific research, climate change analysis and environmental management, unhampered by sterile debates about the validity of the seven claims to territorial sovereignty.

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