Antarctica beyond Consensus: Governing the Commons before Breakdown

Andrew Kelly, Impact Trust / Dark Matter Labs (Australia)

Antarctica is a large-scale example of peaceful, post-sovereign governance on Earth. For over sixty years, the Antarctic Treaty System has managed a strategically significant commons without a standing army, permanent population, or settled resource sovereignty. Yet the same consensus structure that once enabled restraint is increasingly used to delay, block, and hollow out decision-making. This paper argues that Antarctica should be understood not simply as a treaty regime to preserve, but as a frontier case for pre-emptive peace: how governance acts before ecological pressure, geopolitical rivalry, and institutional stasis harden into breakdown. At stake is more than Antarctica itself. As future coordination problems grow more complex, the world will need governance models that do not rely on crisis, coercion, or a return to good faith as preconditions for action.