December 1st is a day of “peace for all mankind”, celebrating annually the day the 1959 Antarctic Treaty was signed by the United States and Soviet Union with ten other nations, including claimant and non-claimant states, at the height of the Cold War as the first nuclear arms agreement.
ANTARCTICA DAY celebrations began with the 2009 Antarctic Treaty Summit (with HSH Prince Albert II as the patron among nearly forty supporting organizations globally) in Washington, D.C. , where the 1959 Antarctic Treaty had been signed fifty years earlier, as noted in its Preamble:
Recognizing that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord;
Convinced that the establishment of a firm foundation for the continuation and development of such cooperation on the basis of freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica as applied during the International Geophysical Year accords with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind.
ANTARCTICA DAY was promoted subsequently by the Foundation for Good Governance of International Spaces and has been evolving every since.
What enabled the two superpower adversaries to cooperate in Antarctica as well as Outer Space throughout the Cold War, despite their conflicts elsewhere? The simple answer is “matters of common interest”. This phrase from Article IX of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty highlights the negotiation choice among allies and adversaries alike – like a glass that is half full or half empty – to build common interests or to resolve conflicts.
There were two roads among the superpowers after the Second World War and the one less traveled made all the difference. With the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, common interests were pursued in view of global survival rather than the alternative with conflict and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) on the horizon.
In a contemporary context, we are now engaged in new period of restrained conflict when dialogues are excluded among nations. With heightened relevance once again, ANTARCTICA DAY is an of exemplar for humanity, revealing “forever” lessons from the 1959 Antarctic Treaty of great powers balancing national interests and common interests for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.
These “forever” lessons – which emerged from the 2009 Antarctic Treaty Summit – also are memorialized with the first book in the field of SCIENCE DIPLOMACY, introducing a “language of hope” and underscoring the proposition introduced in 1960 by Dr. Laurence Gould (National Academy of Sciences) during the United States Senate ratification hearings:
The Antarctic Treaty is indispensable to the world of science which knows no national or other political boundaries; but it is much more than that . . . it is a document unique in history which may take its place alongside the Magna Carta and other great symbols of man’s quest for enlightenment and order.
We know, after 800 years, the global influence of the Magna Carta with constitutions and democratic processes among nations. Imagine – as a testable proposition at the international level – how “forever” lessons of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty with informed decisionmaking could sustain our globally-interconnected civilization across the next 800 years.
