Brill Academic Publishers, Yearbook of Polar Law Online, 1(12), p. 434-453, 2020
DOI: 10.1163/22116427_012010025
Full text: Unavailable
Drawing from an analysis of experiences in outer space law, this paper provides insights into challenges involved with managing the global common spaces of the polar regions. The literature concerning governance of the international commons regions focuses on justice and equity concerning natural resources, climate change, the speed, uncertainty and consequences stemming from key actor activity in the Polar Regions. This usually boils down to successes and failures of treaty noncompliance and enforcement mechanisms, or the lack thereof. This paper highlights a current political process aimed at dismantling agreed upon terms outer space international agreements. This offers a snapshot of a political process, likely to influence evolving polar legal norms for the rapidly melting Arctic and Antarctic regions. This is a conceptual paper borrowing theoretical and methodological approaches from political science and international relations such as a Gramscian analysis, constructivism theory and critical discourse analysis, to present several interesting ideas. The purpose is to enable people to understand and explain that future colonisation patterns are unfolding today. It calls attention to issues likely to challenge and define our world in the twenty-first century.