Abstract

The article engages in a cross-disciplinary dialogue between law, geography, and the humanities in a time of climate change. It focuses on the British Overseas Territories (BOTs) situated at the crossroads of Southern Atlantic geopolitical disputes: the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands. The current ecological crisis refashions territorial claims over these islands and archipelagos. The article explores the legal implications of the concept of “environmental authorityµ. This concept benefits from the paradigms shaped when England (then the UK) started navigating the Southern hemisphere in the seventeenth century. In delving into an alternative reading of British titles, the paper analyses to what extent they underwent an ecological shift, which might be applied to tackle our transnational ecological concerns.