Funston, Bernie --- "Foreword: polar oceans governance in an era of change" [2014] ELECD 307; in Stephens, Tim; VanderZwaag, L. David (eds), "Polar Oceans Governance in an Era of Environmental Change" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014) xiii

Book Title: Polar Oceans Governance in an Era of Environmental Change

Editor(s): Stephens, Tim; VanderZwaag, L. David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955444

Section Title: Foreword: polar oceans governance in an era of change

Author(s): Funston, Bernie

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Foreword: polar oceans governance in an
era of change
Bernie Funston

In the last ten years in particular, legal scholars have turned their
attention to polar issues. This volume represents a very valuable contri-
bution to the literature assembled by leading Canadian and Australian
experts in the field. What we learn in these pages about Arctic and
Antarctic legal regimes is highly relevant for national, regional and
international policy-makers generally, not just those who have polar
interests.
An important dimension of this publication is its comprehensive and
forward-looking treatment of both polar regions. For newcomers to polar
studies, there is often a tendency to draw analogies between these
regions. For example, many recent commentators have put forward the
superficially attractive proposition that the approach followed in the
Antarctic Treaty System, with the Antarctic Treaty (1959) as its corner-
stone, should be superimposed on the Arctic. The authors of this study
have identified subtle as well as dramatic differences that make such an
approach impractical, while at the same time drawing attention to
important system-level connections between the Arctic and Antarctic. As
Professors Stephens and VanderZwaag point out in the introductory
chapter, `[e]nvironmental change ... is now the dominant and shared
characteristic of both regions, especially as climate change makes its
effects felt'.
In addition to climate change, issues such as ocean acidification and
transboundary pollution, coupled with pressures of globalization, includ-
ing renewable and non-renewable resource demands, potential new
shipping routes and tourism, have made polar ...