International Regulation of Mineral Resources Activities in the Polar Regions

Future positions and options around mineral resources are a dominant theme in the contemporary polar discourse. Whilst, in both the Arctic and Antarctic, attention to these resources goes back over a century (and considerably longer in the Arctic), it is only recently that the issues have acquired geopolitical intensity. The current focus arises, first, in the context of concerns about anthropogenic climate change and arguments about the imperative of leaving fossil fuels in particular in situ and, second, in the context of the changing world order and attendant regional and global rivalries around resource access and control. The chapter examines international mechanisms and regulation of polar mineral resources under the regional regimes of the Arctic Council and Antarctic Treaty System and in relation to the continental shelf and deep seabed under the Law of the Sea Convention.