On 1 December, the Antarctic Rights Alliance will be launched through a landmark multi-location global gathering spanning communities and ecosystems across the world. From San Francisco, Amsterdam, Oxford, London and Cape Town to the Amazon, the Niger River, the Dart River, Venda in Limpopo, Auckland, the Pacific Islands and beyond, groups will come together to acknowledge this new international initiative dedicated to recognising and the rights of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
The synchronised launch on Antarctica Day highlights the growing recognition that Antarctica’s future is inseparable from the health of the planet and the well-being of all communities, human and more-than-human, connected through climate, oceans, life systems and more. This global movement marks a central moment in advancing rights-based, Earth-centred governance for the world’s southernmost area: Antarctica.
What is the Alliance?
Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are living entities which cover 10% of the surface of the planet, vital to all life on Earth, yet voiceless in decisions that determine their fate. The Antarctic Alliance is a global alliance of scientists, lawyers, Indigenous leaders, creatives, and advocates working for the recognition of Antarctica as an autonomous legal entity with the inherent rights to exist, regenerate, evolve and be represented in decision-making processes that affect its interests. The Alliance is in the process of finalising an Antarctic Declaration that sets out Antarctica’s rights and the corresponding duties on humans, and will then seek formal legal recognition for Antarctica as a self-governing entity, with representation in international decision-making.
This unprecedented global initiative builds on the momentum of the Rights-of-Nature movement which has seen the recognition of rights of Nature in over 40 countries. It seeks to transform how the world sees Antarctica and to champion its protection, and to complement, not replace, the Antarctic Treaty System.
Central to Antarctic Rights is Indigenous wisdom which emphasises that humans must take responsibility for maintaining respectful and harmonious relationships with other beings as our kin. These worldviews reframe Antarctica as a living community rather than a remote wilderness and place the emphasis on how people relate to that community, and our responsibility to avoid disrupting it. Indigenous leadership would help ensure that the declaration reflects both ecological science and Indigenous principles.
Why does it Matter?
Antarctica regulates global climate, drives ocean circulation, and holds 90% of global ice. The ongoing destabilisation of the continent’s ice sheets has the potential to trigger catastrophic sea-level rise and disrupt weather systems worldwide. Current protections rely on securing consensus among the 29 States that have voting rights under the Antarctic Treaty System, (the ATS); granting Antarctica legal standing ensures enforceable accountability and allows Antarctica’s best interests to be advanced in global decision-making processes.
Antarctica occupies a unique place in global governance through the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), a pioneering model of peaceful cooperation and scientific collaboration since its adoption in 1959. Today, however, Antarctica faces escalating environmental pressures, many of which originate beyond the Treaty area and lie outside the ATS’s current mandate. As a result, the system’s ability to safeguard the continent is increasingly challenged by the scale and nature of contemporary threats. In recent years, efforts to adopt new conservation measures have often reached a deadlock, partly due to the consensus-based decision-making process that once ensured unity but now sometimes limits the system’s responsiveness. Some states may also be positioning themselves for future discussions about the ATS’s long-term framework, adding further complexity.
WFA is a Founding Member
Professor Nicholas King, WFA Board Member, on joining the Alliance:
“Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are a living ecosystem that the entire world relies upon for a stable climate, much of our oxygen, and our current existence as a stable, globalised society. If they were to lose their glaciers it would flood every coastal city, every harbour and overwhelm thousands of inhabited islands worldwide, displacing millions. Such sea-level rise would radically impact our physical planet, and thus our human socio-economic systems, and not for the better. Enabling this entire region to retain functional health and integrity is in everyone’s interest. The best way to do that? Whilst not necessarily an end point, creating legal protection through rights of nature laws. Many successful templates of how this can be done already exist, for example, the Mar Menor lagoon in Spain. We simply need a critical mass of global support.”
“The most urgent threat to Antarctica today is a continued drive to exploit its natural resources, in the process undermining the international protection framework built over decades. Recognising Antarctica as a living entity with rights would be a rational next step in our evolving relationship with Antarctica, from remote unknown, to a strategic natural resource frontier, to today’s managed wilderness where protection and use coexist uneasily. Climate change adds further complexity, with unprecedented impacts on environments and ecosystems developed over a geological time frame. Antarctica is powerful and enduring, but is also fragile and vulnerable to human pressures. There is a point where human interference with nature must stop—and Antarctica is marking that limit. If we see Antarctica as a living entity with a right to be itself, then we can manage human activities in the region, and beyond, from a perspective that treats respect for that “right to be” as our guiding star.”
