Photo credit: Hope Tracey
By Hope Elizabeth Tracey, PhD in Global Governance
The Conference:
For the first time in six years, due to pandemic restrictions, Antarctic researchers from all over the world were once again able to meet face to face for the XIth SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research) Open Science Conference and Biennial Meetings from August 19-23, 2024. This year’s meetings were held in the beautiful town of Pucón, located in Southern Chile and surrounded by volcanos, waterfalls, pristine lakes, and hot springs.
SCAR was established in 1958 by the 12 original signatory Parties to the Antarctic Treaty, and is a non-governmental organization which initiates, develops, and coordinates international research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. As well as facilitating science, SCAR’s advice plays a crucial role in decision making processes. SCAR Open Science Conferences are the world’s premier Antarctic science meetings and offer researchers from various disciplines and countries the opportunity to present their work, network, and participate more actively in SCAR’s scientific activities.
This year’s conference saw over a thousand attendees and comprised a diverse programme featuring plenary lectures, mini-symposia, parallel sessions, panel discussions, posters, workshops, and side events covering the life sciences, physical sciences, geosciences, humanities and social sciences, and cross-disciplinary topics.
In addition to the general programme, there were many fun cultural events to engage in such as The Antarctic Fest— a full day event organized by local community members that included an art exhibition with regional artists, a documentary festival with the participation of national and foreign filmmakers, and photographic exhibitions. There were also great networking events such as Early Career Professional socials, a Gala Dinner, and a closing ‘Antarctic Party’ to causally chat with other researchers and state delegates.
My Presentation:
As one of the top 5 scoring abstracts out of 109 applications, I was able to attend this conference with the generous travel funding and support from Ant-ICON [Integrated Science to Inform Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation] and EG-ABI [The Expert Group on Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics] to orally present under the Humanities and Social Sciences sub-theme of ‘Antarctic Governance, Science and Law at the International and Domestic Level.”
My presentation, entitled ‘Reconsidering Antarctic Marine Bioprospecting Governance in Light of the BBNJ Agreement,’ focused on the complex and ambiguous intersection between the newly adopted Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement’s provisions on marine genetic resources and the default rules applying to bioprospecting under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) to inquire into the question of which regime takes precedence. My presentation challenged the arguments made by Consultative Parties of the ATS that the ATS is the “competent framework” to govern the activity. I argued that Consultative Parties have strategically selected the forum of the ATS over the BBNJ Agreement because the minimal requirements concerning marine bioprospecting under the ATS (such as not requiring benefit-sharing from the commercialization of these resources) ultimately serve their interests, to the disadvantage of less developed economies and counter to emerging international consensus regarding the equitable nature of rights for genetic material.
This presentation was well received and marked another milestone in my 4-year (to date) journey studying Antarctic marine bioprospecting governance – which will soon culminate in the publication of an article co-written on this subject matter with my supervisor, Dr. Neil Craik.
Favorite Presentation:
I attended a noteworthy presentation by Dr. Akiho Shibata, Professor of International Law and Director of the Polar Cooperation Research Centre at Kobe University in Japan — which I highlight in this blog for the relevance to global governance research (though I also attended many interesting scientific presentations). Dr. Shibata’s presentation outlined what he referred to as the ‘worrisome precedent’ set at the May 2024 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Kochi, India. By this, he was referring to the introduction of ‘political circumstances’ as a determining factor in whether to grant a state consultative status under the Antarctic Treaty. Historically, the granting of consultative status to the Treaty has been assessed based on scientific criteria — such as the amount of research activity one’s country is conducting in the Antarctic / the presence of research bases in Antarctica. However, in 2024, Belarus applied for Consultative Status and were explicitly rejected based on the ‘current political situation’, an argument that the political circumstances of Belarus — namely, their support for Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine — contradict the foundational principles of the Antarctica Treaty (peaceful purposes). Dr. Shibata believed this development to be worrying from a legal perspective, as it may open the door up to rejecting other countries in their aspiration for consultative status based on political instead of scientific reasoning.
Reflections:
The biggest advantage of the SCAR Open Science Conference — namely, the ability to interact with a diverse array of academics from all disciplines – ranging from sciences, law and governance, economics, and arts and culture — was also the most challenging aspect of the conference.
As academics we become fully immersed in our research area and communicate using the languages our of disciplines. For example, as an academic who studies international law, I sometimes take for granted the fact that other people may know relatively little about legal principles and texts. This fact, if one is not mindful, can quickly lead to unproductive interactions and missed opportunities for knowledge sharing with those outside of your discipline.
This is especially important for the science-policy interface. As highlighted by many throughout this conference, scientists often do not understand what policy makers need, and policy makers often have a hard time understanding the science. This phenomenon proliferates outside of the conference setting into institutional structures. The co-production of knowledge is vital to moving things forward, but we find ourselves lost in translation, without a common language to share.
This was reflected in the fact that most of the audience members for presentation sessions were those affiliated with the discipline being presented — scientists went to other science presentations, lawyers stuck to law. This is of course natural, because you gravitate to the topics and disciplines that interest you — I myself did this.
However, in sticking to our academic circles, we miss out on the opportunity to learn from those outside of our discipline who can offer different perspectives and knowledge. This was reflected in the fact that some of the most interesting conversations I had were informal conversations with scientists over meals — originally forced to sit together due to limited seating.
With all that being said, multidisciplinary conferences can provide a great opportunity for learning beyond your discipline — but one must choose to leverage that opportunity.
I look forward to further experiences that challenge me to communicate my research to those unfamiliar with my area of study and hope I can attend the next SCAR Open Science Conference in Oslo, Norway in 2026!