Thread by @conan_esq

The mysteries of Antarctica are buried by paperwork more than anything else. 🇦🇶🧵

“Hey Conan, I’m launching an expedition to Antarctica. We’ll hire a ship and trek into the wastes, settle this once and for all! You in?”

Whoa, slow down there Anon—do you have all your permits?

“What do you mean permits? Anyone can go to Antarctica. It’s a myth that you can’t go there. Don’t be paranoid.”

They do say that, but is it REALLY true?

I, your expert on Fringe Law, looked into what our expedition it would take…

Antarctica is governed by international treaty. Specifically, the Antarctic Treaty of 1961.

The stated reason for this treaty is to keep 🇦🇶 from becoming a military theater and to promote scientific study. See Art. 1 of the Treaty.

The Treaty is the basis for governance of 🇦🇶, so any limitations will flow from that. Let’s look at some key provisions.

Note first how focused are the Preamble and Art 1 on scientific endeavors.

Next, note the obligation created by Art 7 to inform all Parties to the Treaty of all expeditions. Finally, look at how Art 10 gives a broad power of enforcement in form of duty to each Party.

This all boils down to two main rules.

1) Your government has to know about your expedition to 🇦🇶 so they can inform everyone else, and

2) you can’t do anything that undermines your country’s “scientific” efforts there.

Those tour companies that take you on a cruise from Ushuaia? They offer limited access because they operate on pre-approved advanced notice with the government. Those are all strictly under government approval.

But we don’t just want to walk around on a beach for an hour. We want to know what’s going on. Ice wall? Endless wastes? Buried civs? Nazi bases? Hollow earth?

To launch our own private expedition, we’ll need to file an Advance Notice with the State Dept, attached.

The fine print here is interesting:

1) US is reserving the right to say “kick rocks punk”

2) This isn’t just for Antarctica, it’s to even GO SOUTH OF 60th PARALLEL. You can’t even sail close to 🇦🇶

On top of that, we’ll need to complete an Environmental Impact Assessment (attached).

This process gives ALL parties to the Treaty the ability to weigh in on our expedition and if you read it, it’s clearly written to give countries the right to say “GTFO”.

Oh and make sure you have a plan to pack your literal shit out to comply with “Annex III To The Protocol On Environmental Protection To The Antarctic Treaty: Waste Disposal And Waste Management”

And do NOT wander into a Specially Protected Area under Annex V !!

This is all just the scratching the surface too. Peruse this 300 page manual if you want to fall into a rabbit-hole. And they’ll shut you down or yank you out for any of this.

documents.ats.aq/atcm43/ww/atcm…

“But Conan, couldn’t we just—“

Nah. Because the US keeps both Marshalls and various military there (Operation Deep Freeze). You CAN have military there under the treaty, as long as they’re just helping with the science ofc ;)

Like I said. Read between the lines and you’ll see they’ll take any excuse to snatch you outta there. They sent the MIB down there just to cool a little scuffle.

The point of all this is for them to be able to say you can go.

You can go. You just have to say exactly where you’re going, what you’re doing. And they’ll say no if they don’t like it. And they’ll remove you if you try to do it anyway. Why?

You can go, but really you can’t. It’s plausible deniability.

And when you structure things so you can plausibly deny something, it’s evidence there’s something to be denied!

Not dispositive evidence, but still evidence.

There is something weird going on down there guys. I don’t know what, but this kafkaesque structure of legaloid trickery is unmistakeable obfuscation.

When they can say no without having to say “no”, it’s because they don’t want you to ask “why not?”