A look inside: domestic features and the implementation of human and environmental risk measures in European Antarctic Treaty Parties

ended

The Antarctic Treaty has successfully overcome sovereignty disputes in the region by ensuring governance based on peace, scientific cooperation and environmental protection. But there are limits to its domestic implementation. Since 2004, the Treaty Measures 4 (2004) and 1 (2005) managing human and environmental risks in Antarctica have not become effective because not all Treaty Parties have implemented them. To find out what affects the implementation by Treaty Parties, I will compare 12 European Antarctic National Programmes to identify which domestic factors foster or delay the implementation of these measures. I will analyse documents, interview national Antarctic policy actors, and use Process Tracing and Qualitative Comparative Analysis for a comparative conclusion and for recommendations on how Parties should foster the Measures' implementation. Results will advance the field of multilateral environmental agreements, showing the implications of domestic differences for Antarctic governance; and they will help stakeholders to reshape their expectations of the Treaty’s future development. Moreover, by comparing different European Antarctic Treaty Parties, this project will also help to establish a European Antarctic perspective, which is still underdeveloped. The host institution, Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), is one of the world’s leading institutes in Antarctic research. I will be integrated in AWI's International Cooperation Unit, where I will acquire contact with most European National Antarctic Programmes, and a Secondment at the European Polar Board in The Hague, the Netherlands, will provide me with data about the different European National Antarctic Programmes. POLARPOL will thus help me to develop myself as a consummate researcher in environmental governance and multilevel policy analysis and to establish myself as a competent policy advisor for the Polar regions.