In the fictional Universal Century of the sci-fi mecha anime Mobile Suit Gundam the Antarctic Treaty states that:

• all uses of Nuclear weapons are prohibited
• all uses of Biological weapons are prohibited
• all uses of Chemical weapons are prohibited
• dropping space colonies or large asteroids onto Earth is prohibited
• all P.O.W. must be treated humanely
• all neutral territories, including the Luna colonies and Side 6, must have their neutrality respected.

Events leading to the Treaty

The Principality of Zeon declared war on the Earth Federation government on January 3rd U.C. 0079, and attacked and gassed entire colonies, killing millions of people. Both sides used nuclear warheads to attack one another.

The Zeon forces attacked with their nuclear-powered MS-05B Zaku I mobile suit units in a Blitzkrieg-style war during their Operation British , but had only 1/30th of the Federation's resources.

The Zeon Forces then attempted to drop an empty Island Three colony onto the Federal Force's General HQ Jaburo in South America. However, the Earth Federal Force routed the colony away and broke it in several pieces. The largest chunk hit Sydney, Australia and wiped out 16% of the continent and created a 300 mile crater.

During the first few weeks of the One Year War, known as the One Week War, 2.8 billion people, 25% of the human population, were dead. On January 31st, U.C. 0079, both sides agreed on the treaty.

Motivations

The Federation needed the treaty to be signed because:

• they had no effective way of defending themselves from colony drops
• they knew the Principality's main weakness was the scarcity of mineral resources, and prolonging the war meant taking the lead in mass-production of ships and weapons
• they needed time to catch-up with the mobile suit development.

The Principality of Zeon agreed to the treaty in light of the following factors:

• banning of mass-distruction weapons, along with the deployment of Minowsky particle generators, meant that the mobile suit short-range combat introduced with their Zakus become the main battle scenario, a scenario where they were vastly superior
• the Principality already had a wide advantage in MS development, having successfully deployed their MS-06C Zaku II mobile suit units in real combat, whilst the federation had yet to start MS developement
• the treaty allowed the Principality to take the battle front down on the surface of Earth; surface access was considered paramount because in a prolonged war scenario their raw material resources were insufficient, and they soon after started various mining operations on Earth (the biggest being the Ma Kuve mining operations near Odessa).

Violations of the treaty

The Antartic Treaty remained in effect after the end of the war (in UC0080), but was effectively broken many times:

• UC0083, Operation Stardust: the Federation (secretly) developed the RX-78GP02A Physalis Gundam unit; the unit was designed to attack with nuclear warheads, and was capable of sustaining the shock resulting from such explosions; for this reason all official records of it were subsequently deleted
• UC0083, Operation Stardust: the Delaz Fleet violated the Treaty firing a nuclear warhead on the Federation Naval Review (destroying two thirds of the fleet)
• UC0083, Operation Stardust: the Delaz Fleet violated the treaty by dropping a colony on the Northern American continent
• UC0085: the Titans repeatedly used chemical weapons to commit genocide by gassing entire colonies
• UC0087: Neo Axis dropped a colony on the city of Dublin
• UC0093: Char Aznable dropped an asteroid on the city of Lhasa, in Tibet
• UC0093: Char Aznable attempted to drop the asteroid Axis on the Federation main base Jaburo, in the Southern American continent, but failed.

Outcome

Even if the Treaty was broken many times, it somehow remained in effect, and subsequent MS developement never again contemplated nuclear weapons.