From the viewpoint of those States which are not parties to the Antarctic Treaty, the international community in a wider sense, the situation regarding Antarctica often appears to be much less satisfactory than the protagonists of the Antarctic Treaty System portray it to be. For some non-member States, the realisation that, after more than five thousand years of recorded history, some one tenth of the planet is not subject to any generally recognised comprehensive legal regime is cause for disquiet, particularly when the rate at which technology continues to enhance man's destructive and exploitative capabilities is borne in mind. Such a lacuna in the fabric of recognised governmental control and management, occurring as it does in an area remote from the usual centres of human activity, and one moreover of critical importance to the maintenance of ecological balance over the planet as a whole, would seem to offer scope for mischief of a grave order.

While federalists may find the division of the world into nation-States to be productive of selfish, even destructive, trends, such a division does, at least, enable the greater part of the world to be governed, and to be subjected to broadly similar systems of law and law enforcement which, taken together, offer a reasonably secure context for the conduct of peaceful human activity. The icy wastes of Antarctica alone remain isolated from the mainstream of international legal, social and economic development.