PhD position on Antarctic tourism regulation

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The PhD project is part of the overarching project, entitled Proactive Management of Antarctic Tourism: Exploring the Role of ATS Principles and Values and Best Practices Beyond the ATS (PROACT). The project will be conducted by a consortium in which three universities participate: Tilburg University (TiU), Utrecht University (UU) and Wageningen University and Research (WUR). The objective of the project is to develop knowledge for strengthening the proactive management of tourism within the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) on four themes, each covered by a PhD or postdoc project: (1) regulating visitor numbers by a cap-and-trade system (PhD, WUR); (2) constraining diversification of activities by pre-assessment procedures (PhD, WUR/TiU); (3) improving domestic implementation and enforcement of ATS tourism regulations (PhD, TiU); and (4) enhancing the role of non-use and non-user States (postdoc, UU). Whereas the two PhD projects at WUR are based in the social sciences and interdisciplinary research, the TiU PhD and UU postdoc positions fall within the discipline of law. Key features of the project include close cooperation between consortium staff (PhDs/postdoc/supervisors) and involvement of policy officers and international experts.

The TiU PhD project relates to the theme of strengthening implementation of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty and other ATS regulations applying to Antarctic tourism. The agreement to disagree on the question of sovereignty over Antarctic territory (Article IV Antarctic Treaty), constitutes the basis for a joint management system for Antarctica. Consequently, human activities in the Antarctic have to be regulated through the domestic legislation of the Parties to the ATS regulations. However, Contracting Parties to the Protocol have adopted different implementation approaches, for instance in relation to the question as to which persons are covered by domestic legislation (jurisdictional scope). These differences result in gaps in, overlaps of, and conflicts between legislation of different Parties, which raises the question as to what extent the Parties are successful in establishing system of ‘joint jurisdiction’ over Antarctic tourism activities. This question is of particular importance in light of tourism growth and diversification (PROACT projects 1 and 2). The objectives of the TiU project are: to conduct a comprehensive comparative legal study on the jurisdictional scope of domestic legislation of the Parties to the Protocol; to identify related problems in theory and practice for ensuring that Antarctic tourism activities are covered by the Protocol and other ATS regulations; to study the concept of ‘joint jurisdiction’ in light of present and future developments; and to provide concrete proposals on how to address problems, also in view of findings of the three other PROACT projects.

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