Wild tools for polar lawyers: The legal tool of area protection for protecting polar wilderness

Wilderness protection in Antarctica has received attention at various previous Polar Law Symposia. Generally, these discussions and resulting publications have shown the tension between, on the one hand, the broad societal appreciation of wilderness in Antarctica, and, on the other hand, the limited attention for this concept in law and policy making in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM). Although there have been attempts to place wilderness protection higher on the agendas of the ATCM and the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP; an advisory body of the ATCM), no substantial progress on the topic has been made. Against this backdrop, Antje Neumann and Kees Bastmeijer will discuss the question to what extent various domestic legal tools (available under domestic legal systems) to protect the European Arctic wilderness might be of value for wilderness protection in Antarctica.