SOVEREIGNTY IN ANTARCTIC

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27838, 10 December 1955, Page 4

SOVEREIGNTY IN ANTARCTIC

INTERNATIONAL LAW DISCUSSED

ADDRESS BY MR R. H. BOWRON "It is important to note that effective occupation is the essential test of claims to sovereignty over territories,” said Mr R. H. Bowron in an address on “International Law and the Antarctic area,” on Thursday evening. ‘‘The emphasis on this concept has shifted

from the taking of physical possession of the land and the exclusion of others, to the manifestation and exercise of the functions of government over the territory.” Mr Bowron is lecturer in international law at Canterbury University College. His address was the third in a series arranged by the Christchurch Antarctic Appeal Committee. The word "occupation” today in international law meant the appropriation of sovereignty, not of soil, he said. The decisive test of the effectiveness of an occupation was whether the claimant had in fact displayed State functions in regard to the territory which adequately assured to other States “the minimum of protection of which international law is the guardian.”

Mr Brown said it appeared from modern cases that when uninhabited or very sparsely inhabited territory was taken into sovereignty, the occupying State might not necessarily be required to maintain even a single official permanently on the spot. It was enough if administration was provided if and when required. The mere fact that a part of the Antarctic was discovered by such-and-such an explorer or whaler would not by itself confer a title to sovereignty on the State of which that person was a national, he said. States claiming Antarctic territories had, in defining their claims, elected to adopt the sector principle. But the sector principle as applied to Antarctica was far from achieving universal acceptance. There had clearly been a considerable volume of State practice in the making of sector claims, but it was not yet possible to spell out of the practice a new rule of international law, said Mr Bowron.