Antarctica and ice shelves south of 60° S for the purposes of the Treaty System. The treaty was signed by twelve countries including the Soviet Union (and later Russia), the United Kingdom, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and the United States. It set aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, established freedom of scientific investigation and environmental protection, and banned military activity on Antarctica. This was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War. In 1983 the Antarctic Treaty Parties began negotiations on a convention to regulate mining in Antarctica. A coalition of international organisations launched a public pressure campaign to prevent
Brazilian Antarctica May 1975, making the first official mention of the Frontage Theory, which states (simplified) that sovereignty over each point in Antarctica properly belongs to the first country whose non-Antarctic territory one would reach when travelling north in a straight line from such a point. The Frontage Theory ("Teoria da Defrontação") was proposed by Brazilian geopolitical scholar Therezinha de Castro and published in her book "Antártica: Teoria da Defrontação". Outside the zone of interest, Brazil maintains a permanent staffed research facility, the Comandante Ferraz Brazilian Antarctic Base (UN/LOCODE: AQ-CFZ), located in Admiralty Bay, King George Island, near the tip of the