The 2026 Deadlock Over Consultative Status Under the Antarctic Treaty

[Luis Valentín Ferrada (Chile) is a professor of international law at the Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Law, where he leads the Antarctic Studies Program (U-Antártica) and is a principal investigator at the Millennium Institute for Biodiversity of Antarctic and Subantarctic Ecosystems (BASE). He collaborates with different research teams of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).]

Introduction

At the XLVIII Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), held in Hiroshima from 11 to 21 May 2026, Belarus, Canada, and Türkiye applied for consultative status, which would allow them to participate in Antarctic decision-making. Colombia’s request was affected by procedural issues concerning its inclusion on the agenda. None was admitted as a new Consultative Party.

That outcome was not simply a procedural setback. It exposed a growing tension within the Antarctic Treaty System. Consultative status is formally grounded in scientific activity and legal compliance, but in practice, it also depends on political consent.

Since 1959, the Antarctic Treaty and the broader Antarctic Treaty System have provided the basic framework for peace, science, sustainable resource exploitation, and environmental protection in Antarctica. Any United Nations member state may accede to the Treaty, but accession does not automatically confer the right to participate in decision-making in Antarctica. 

Article IX(2) links consultative status primarily to substantial scientific research in Antarctica. Yet the consensus requirement means that each existing Consultative Party can block admission. The result is not a purely technical procedure. Legal and scientific criteria matter, but they are filtered through political discretion.

The 2026 applications reinforce the idea that consultative status cannot be understood solely through the formal lens of science and treaty compliance. The debate now also concerns credibility, institutional trust, geopolitical alignment, and the willingness of existing parties to broaden the circle of decision-makers.

The Legal Architecture of Consultative Status

Antarctic governance is structured around several institutions. This post focuses on the ATCM, the central forum for general governance of the Antarctic Treaty area (south of 60° south latitude). It does not address in detail the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, whose mandate concerns Antarctic marine living resources within the CAMLR Convention Area.

Article XIII governs accession to the Antarctic Treaty. The Treaty is open to United Nations member states and, with the consent of the Consultative Parties, to other states. The Treaty currently has 58 Parties. But becoming a party to the Treaty is not the same as becoming a Consultative Party. There are currently 29 Consultative Parties: 12 signatory states and 17 acceding states that have been admitted as such. 

Only Consultative Parties participate in decision-making at ATCMs. They make decisions by consensus, generally understood as the absence of a formal objection. Although the system is not formally framed as a veto system, consensus gives each Consultative Party practical blocking power (a de facto veto). Any of them can prevent the adoption of a measure it considers detrimental to its interests.

The 12 original signatories are automatically Consultative Parties. Acceding states, by contrast, must demonstrate a special interest in Antarctica by conducting substantial scientific research there. Article IX(2) gives two examples: establishing a scientific station or dispatching a scientific expedition. Although the Treaty does not define the threshold in detail, existing Consultative Parties must be satisfied that the applicant’s scientific activity is substantial enough to justify admission. Article 22(4) of the Environmental Protocol adds a formal legal precondition: from the Protocol’s entry into force in 1998, no state may become a Consultative Party unless it is bound by the Protocol.

As a result, three requirements structure the process. First, the applicant must demonstrate substantial scientific research activity in Antarctica. Second, it must be bound by the Environmental Protocol. Third, its request must be accepted by consensus by the existing Consultative Parties. The first requirement is evidentiary and evaluative; the second is formal and binary; the third is political. Decision 2 (2017) and its annexed “Guidelines on the procedure to be followed with respect to Consultative Party status” set out the procedure and evidentiary assessment, but they do not eliminate the political character of the final decision. In practice, securing consensus may require years of diplomatic engagement.

The difficult question is what constitutes “substantial scientific research activity” for Article IX(2). The two examples provided by the Antarctic Treaty are illustrative and no longer exhaust the factors considered in practice.

Recent Consultative Party practice suggests that the threshold under Article IX(2) is being assessed through a broader credibility assessment. Substantial scientific research remains the formal criterion. In practice, parties appear to consider whether the applicant has a stable national Antarctic program, visible and accessible scientific output, logistical capacity, international cooperation, participation in SCAR or COMNAP, and a record of engagement with the Antarctic Treaty System. These indicators are not formal legal requirements, but they increasingly shape the institutional assessment of whether an applicant should be admitted to Antarctic decision-making.

From Legal Criteria to Political Deadlock

The recent applications did not present a single factual pattern. Belarus, Canada, and Türkiye – and Colombia, although its requirement was not analyzed – differed in their treaty participation, scientific output, national Antarctic programs, logistical capacity, institutional development, and international cooperation. Those differences mattered. Yet the discussions revealed a common structural feature: political judgment served as a filter through which legal and scientific criteria were applied.

Belarus first requested Consultative Party status in 2019. The pandemic delayed initial consideration of the request, but the application later became entangled with broader geopolitical concerns. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Belarus’s support for Russia made its admission politically difficult, particularly because Ukraine is a Consultative Party and consensus is required for admission. This does not mean that Consultative Parties acted outside the Treaty. Rather, it shows that the Treaty’s design allows political considerations to shape how legal and scientific criteria are assessed in practice.

Canada’s application, submitted in 2021, became politically linked to the Belarusian request. Although many parties supported Canada, Russia and China questioned whether it had demonstrated the required level of substantial scientific research activity in Antarctica, as reflected in the 2022 ATCM Final Report, paras. 118-122. This created a linkage problem: formally separate applications began to affect one another politically. Opposition to one applicant increased the likelihood of opposition to another, not because the legal criteria were identical, but because the consensus rule allowed broader political positions to shape the outcome.

This dynamic was evident in the 2023, 2024, and 2025 ATCMs. Belarus and Canada repeatedly submitted additional information intended to demonstrate compliance with the relevant requirements, but neither application secured consensus. Belarus’s request was affected by concerns about its scientific contribution and by the political consequences of its support for Russia. Canada’s request raised a different question: whether substantial scientific activity could be established without dedicated Antarctic infrastructure or a fully developed national Antarctic program. In both cases, the debate moved beyond a narrow reading of Article IX(2).

The 2024 ATCM marked an important turning point, as the political context surrounding Belarus’s application was explicitly reflected in the Final Report, para. 154. The Antarctic Treaty System has long relied on diplomatic language to manage disagreement among parties. The reference to “current political circumstances” as a reason for not reaching agreement on the Belarusian request was significant because it made the geopolitical context visible for the first time in the official record. The point is not that Antarctic exceptionalism – the idea that the Antarctic regime operates, in principle, without regard to broader world affairs – has fully disappeared. It is that cooperation in Antarctica is less insulated from wider geopolitical conflict than the system’s traditional language of science, peace, and consensus might suggest.

At the 2026 ATCM in Hiroshima, Canada and Belarus renewed their applications, and Türkiye’s request was also considered. Colombia’s request was delayed due to procedural issues and will be considered at the next ATCM. As the host country, Japan encouraged the parties to assess each application on its own merits and to avoid treating separate applications as a political package. The formal discussion focused primarily on scientific criteria, although the broader political context remained relevant to the absence of consensus.

Canada received significant support, but Russia questioned whether it had demonstrated the required level of scientific activity in Antarctica, especially considering the lack of dedicated infrastructure and a fully developed national Antarctic program. Belarus faced concerns about the accessibility and visibility of its scientific output, the geographical focus of its research, and the extent of its international cooperation beyond Russia. Türkiye also received strong support, but consensus was not reached. No new Consultative Party was admitted, and the requests are expected to be reconsidered at the 2027 ATCM.

What the Deadlock Reveals About Antarctic Governance

Although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not formally part of the 2026 discussion on consultative status, it remained relevant to the broader political context. As long as the war continues, Belarus’s application is unlikely to be assessed on purely scientific or technical grounds. Those political effects may persist beyond the conflict itself.

The consensus rule makes the geopolitical context legally relevant because a political objection can determine whether the legal and scientific criteria produce any institutional effect. Other applications may also be affected if Consultative Parties continue to link formally separate requests through reciprocal political positions.

The difficulty does not lie in the absence of legal criteria. Article IX(2) of the Antarctic Treaty, Article 22(4) of the Environmental Protocol, and Decision 2 (2017) provide a legal and procedural framework. What the 2026 discussions show is that the final consensus requirement allows those criteria to be evaluated politically.

The 2026 deadlock should therefore be understood as a development in institutional practice: the legal criteria for consultative status remain formally intact, but their application is increasingly shaped by political assessments made under the consensus rule.

Antarctic exceptionalism has not disappeared altogether. However, the Antarctic Treaty System is clearly less insulated from geopolitical conflict than its diplomatic culture often suggests.

Applicant states must continue to strengthen their scientific and diplomatic profiles. That will matter. But the deeper issue is the predictability of the procedure itself. The next ATCM will face a question that goes beyond the merits of any individual application: whether the admission of new Consultative Parties can remain predictable, fair, and legally intelligible when consensus allows geopolitical disputes to shape how scientific and legal criteria are applied. In Antarctica, science may open the door to decision-making, but politics still decides whether that door remains open.

Photo attribution: “Flag of the Antarctic Treaty” is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0