Ask HN: Why are there still unclaimed parts of Antarctica? - crypto-jeronimo
======
Someone
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System):

 _”Article 4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish
territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the
treaty is in force;”_

Not every country has signed that, but all the import ones (big powers and
those who claim it because of its relative nearness to their shores) have
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System#Partie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System#Parties)).
Note that the USA and Russia reserve the right to lay a claim in the future,
so this is more like a (long-lasting) pause than an end state in the game.

Now, why has everybody been acting so nicely for decades? Basically because
there isn’t much to fight over there (given its distance to land masses of the
major powers, it isn’t even interesting for deploying military tracking
stations)

I don’t see this change soon, but if it turns out that Antarctica has
resources that can be mined profitably, that can change.

