Image: ravas51 [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr
Belarussian anger after Ukraine says supporting Russian invasion is incompatible with official Antarctic role
Ukraine says it has blocked Belarus from increasing its influence in Antarctic research due to its neighbour’s support for Russia’s invasion, and claimed a missile strike on its National Antarctic Scientific Centre in Kyiv originated in Belarus.
But the move by Ukraine and other countries to prevent Belarus gaining a role in governing Antarctic affairs has sparked controversy among academics in the country.
Activities around the South Pole are governed by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Signatories to the treaty called “consultative parties” get a vote on governance and management decisions about the Antarctic region at annual meetings.
To be a consultative party, nations must belong to a founding group including Russia and the US, or undertake significant amounts of research in the region. Global politics play a role, too, at least in the case of Belarus.
“We think that the Antarctic does not exist in a vacuum or space—it is an integral part of the wider system of international law and international agreements,” said Evgen Dykyi, director of the National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine and a representative of the country to the treaty organisation (pictured, Ukraine’s Antarctic base).
He added that if a state such as Belarus that was seeking consultative status “ignores the UN Statute and UN General Assembly resolutions and supports illegal military aggression against one of the consultative parties of the treaty, this state cannot be a consultative party of the treaty”.
Blocked request
Some scientists from Belarus told Research Professional News they respect the outcome of its application; others say it is grossly unfair and must be unwound.
Belarus, which has an Antarctic station, requested consultative party status in 2021 and that request was discussed again at a meeting in Finland that ended on 8 June.
The treaty’s executive secretary said there was “no decision” taken, which according to several sources was due to lack of consensus among the 29 current parties.
In a 2023 note ahead of its application Belarus argued that its current activities "meet the necessary criteria” for membership. But Research Professional News understands that in addition to Ukraine’s concerns, some countries did not consider the level of its research activity in the region to be sufficient for admittance or had other concerns.
“The international community and the experts who have worked on this issue know better [than me],” said Leonid Valentovich, a microbiologist at Belarusian State University who worked on Antarctic projects. “I respect whatever they decide.”
Valentovich added that he was “only aware of a number of biological studies” in the Antarctic that involved scientists in Belarus.
Others were more critical. “Belarus conducts substantial [enough] research activity in Antarctica to be allowed to become a consultative party,” said Juri Giginyak, a researcher at the Scientific and Practical Center for Bioresources at the Belarus National Academy of Sciences. He added the outcome was “unfair”.
A treaty national contact point for Belarus and head of its Antarctic expedition, Aliaksei Haidashou, declined to comment on the outcome. “At that time I was on the way home on board the ship,” he said. The Belarus National Academy of Sciences and the country’s foreign ministry did not respond to queries.
Belarus has been a non-consultative party to the treaty since 2006. Results of scientific activities of Belarusian scientists in Antarctica from 2007 to 2022 have been published in 142 articles or abstracts in journal and conference proceedings, according to a 2023 note on the country’s justification for gaining consultative status.
The future of another would-be consultative party is also pending. The Canadian government has requested delaying a decision on its application, first examined in 2022, to 2024. A Global Affairs Canada spokesperson said it “did not believe that a consensus would have been achieved this year”.
A version of this article appeared in Research Europe