Special Episode 2: Antarctica

Antarctica’s governance under the Antarctic Treaty System has preserved peace, demilitarization, and international scientific cooperation by freezing sovereignty claims and banning military activity and mineral exploitation since 1961. However, accelerating climate change, growing pressures for resource access (from minerals to bioprospecting), and rising strategic competition—particularly from China and Russia—threaten to strain the treaty’s consensus‐based model and could prompt a reevaluation of its mining ban and enforcement mechanisms around the 2048 review.