The Treaty of Antarctica

Antarctica the frozen wasteland that resides at the bottom of our maps, globes, and are minds as probably the last place you ever want to go because it is too damn cold. The continent of Antarctica was official first sighted by a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in 1820 and since then explores and scientists alike have traveled to the winter wonderland to conduct their research and experiments.

But who owns Antarctica? In 1961 The Antarctic Treaty was signed by 12 countries and is now by 50 countries agreeing that no new claim can be made in Antarctica and already exciting ones can't be extended. The treaty allowed countries with claims before to keep them, those countries being Australia, New Zealand, The United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, France, Norway, and the gives rights to Russia and the United States to make a claim, but neither has yet. The claims made by these 7 nations have some overlap. France's claim is inside of Australia's claim and the claims of the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina all overlap each other.

The treaty institutes that only peaceful activities will ever take place on  Antarctica, which means no military activities or weapons testing, prohibits the use of nuclear weapons testing, which would seem obvious and fall under no weapons testing. The treaty also promotes the freedom of scientific investigation, cooperation, and the free exchange of information with other researchers, the United Nations and any other international organizations. Later agreements made it illegal for nations to use Antarctica as dumping ground for any type of waste and gathering mineral resources except in only the case of scientific research and experimentation. The continent is now, in my opinion, a giant playground where scientist of multiple nations can come together, conduct experiments and share with each other their ideas and results in order to help advance their fields of science, all while enjoying a hot cup of coco

The treaty and later agreements of Antarctica has helped make the continent into one large scientific reserves. Scientist can go their and conduct experiments and share with each other their results to help better advance science and the great landmass of Antarctica is probably one of the largest places that will remain untouched by the many things that humans are famous for, like cities, roads, and landfills, and will remain that way for many years to come and serve has a symbol to of nations working together in name of science.