Apart from seals south of 60°S and whales (which are covered by the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals and the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling respectively), CCAMLR applies to all marine living resources between the Antarctic continent in the south and the Antarctic Polar Front in the north (at about 50°S) (see map). The Polar Front is the zone where colder, fresher waters flowing north from the Antarctic meet the warmer, saltier waters flowing south from the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

CCAMLR has a mandate to conserve and manage mainly high-seas areas. This mandate is carried out within the unique legal conditions attached to rights in such areas. It is also subject to the Antarctic Treaty’s unique understandings on territorial sovereignty south of 60°S as well as in deference to the undisputed control exercised by certain countries over various sub-Antarctic islands and their adjacent waters.

CCAMLR cooperates with three other agreements concerned with environmental conservation and resource management in the Antarctic – particularly, Annex II to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty ‘Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora’, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, and the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (which is not part of the Antarctic Treaty System and is not restricted to the Southern Ocean) (http://www.npolar.no/cep/cephome.htm). In addition, as many marine animals (including birds) cross the northern boundary of the Convention Area, the CCAMLR Commission cooperates with other organisations and national institutions responsible for the management and conservation of areas adjacent to the CCAMLR boundaries.

CCAMLR is concerned not only with fisheries regulation, it also strives to implement a holistic, or ‘ecosystem approach’ to the management of marine living resources in the Southern Ocean. Such an approach views the entire Southern Ocean as a suite of interlinked ecological systems and it is what distinguishes CCAMLR from other multilateral fisheries conventions.