The British, of course, do not need premature publicity, especially given the resonance caused by the ostentatious explorations of Russian oceanologists and geologists on the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev Rise among the Arctic states. In the case of the Southern Ocean shelves, not only Latin American countries but also all 40 nations that have joined the 1959 Antarctic Treaty could get involved in the dispute, including Belarus, which was one of the last to accede to the treaty.
The Antarctic Convention, which expires only in 2048, prohibits the exploration and extraction of minerals on the sixth continent and in its coastal waters; only purely scientific activities are exempt. Furthermore, the states that signed the agreement committed to temporarily cease resolving disputes over the ownership of any area in the zone south of the 60th parallel.
However, the great powers have been waging an undeclared rivalry for the right to 'stake out' as many areas as possible and searching for historical and geological justifications for their claims to Antarctica for years. For example, Indian scientists, who are deploying their second scientific station there, take a long view, reaching back into the depths of centuries: they remind that more than 100 million years ago, part of modern India south of the Himalayas and the continental plate of East Antarctica formed a single continent – Gondwana. In recent years, besides India, China and South Korea, as well as Belgium and Estonia, have announced their own stations near the South Pole. Russia, along with revitalizing its Antarctic stations, uses a tactic of 'markers'. Last year, the now-former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov gave Russian names to several unnamed peaks of the white continent. Thus, on the map of Antarctica in the area of the Krasovsky Ridge, peaks named Marshal Zhukov and Russian princes Vladimir, Boris, Gleb appeared, and the highest point of the Vinson Massif became Yamal Peak.
However, Britain, which has been conducting research in Antarctica for barely a hundred years, is not about to challenge all the 'concessionaires'. After all, London, like everyone else, signed the convention and therefore agreed to abide by its principles. However, the authorities of Foggy Albion still rely not so much on their historical merits as on a clause in the convention that allows countries to extend their zone of claims on the ocean floor up to 350 miles if neighbors do not object. Notably, the British Foreign Ministry, according to a publication in The Guardian, has already begun convincing potential opponents, primarily Chile and Argentina, that an appeal to the UN does not mean immediate commencement of shelf development and hydrocarbon extraction. According to experts, existing extraction technologies do not allow active development at the depths at which the near-Antarctic oil and gas deposits are located.