Law of the Sea
In a bit of a departure from my regular posts, I want to spend a few minutes writing about the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS). For those of you not really familiar with this treaty – LOS is essentially a set of rules for the use of the world’s oceans. Its primary functions are to define maritime zones, protect the environment, preserve freedom of navigation and establish clear guidelines for businesses that depend on the sea for resources. It came into force in 1994, and to date, 152 countries and the European Commission have joined the treaty.
My organization, Citizens for Global Solutions, has been working with a diverse coalition to ensure that the United States can join this group. Last Thursday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the LOS and we believe that the Senate needs to push to secure its passage this term. At a time of divisiveness in Washington on a range of issues, LOS provides an opportunity for bipartisan progress. From the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the environmental community, AT&T and the American Bar Association, LOS has significant and deep support. Frankly the LOS is one of those no-brainer issues in Washington. It makes infinite sense for the Senate to get this done as quickly as possible. It can only help our standing internationally if we start to reengage our allies in core areas where multilateral cooperation makes such good sense.
While there are a range of benefits from an environmental and business stand point, the national security angle has been debated a fair bit. Perhaps the most effective national security case was made by General Richard Myers, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said: “The Convention remains a top national security priority…It supports efforts in the War on Terrorism by providing much-needed stability and operational maneuver space, codifying essential navigational and overflight freedoms.”
Of course there will always be a group of naysayers working to prevent any treaty from passing the Senate, some of this group has come together and is urging the Senate to reject LOS. Most of their arguments seemed based on incorrect data or false assumptions. I was happy to see that Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been calling them on it: “The Senate this year has an opportunity to plug a large hole in our national security structure by approving the Law of the Sea treaty. I have urged President Bush and my colleagues in the Senate to act soon before election year politics or a crowded Senate schedule once again scuttles the chances for this vital international agreement, which has for years been stalled in unnecessary controversy….However, ideological posturing and flat-out misrepresentations by a handful of amateur admirals have sought to cast a shadow over the treaty by suggesting that we are turning over our sovereignty to the United Nations. Their criticisms simply don’t hold water.”
I really hope that the Senate gets LOS done quickly – the case for passage is overwhelming.
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Beyond the many benefits that the US will gain from joining the Convention, their is a diplomatic benefit that has gone unmentioned in all of the discussions.
When President Reagan decided not to sign the Convention in 1982 he left a door open for the future. He identified six criteria that he said had to be met, and if they were, he would support US joining the Convention. After nearly eight years, during which it became clear that all parties lost something with the US being outside the agreement, the US was approached by representatives of both developing and developed countries that had signed the Convention. They said that they thought a solution was possible and that the Reagan criteria could be met.
Consultations began in 1990, becoming formal negotiations in 1993 and the modifications became a binding multilateral convention bound to the original convention in 1994. Tremendous concessions were made by parties that has supported the convention in 1982 and had opposed exactly the concessions made in 1994 to gain US acceptance.
Now, thirteen years later, the United States still hasn’t accepted the victory offered on a silver platter in 1994. If the US cannot accept the renegotiation of the LOS Convention with a result that met the strict criteria set by Ronald Reagan and a convention overwhelming in US interests, how can future US negotiators hope to obtain concessions on other existing agreements (e.g. the International Criminal Court) or to gain the most difficult concessions in a negotiation on a future issue. International negotiations, particuarly multilatreral ones, rely on trust in reaching agreement. As long as the US fails to live up to President Reagan’s commitment, trust in the US as a negotiating party will be reduced.
Comment on October 9, 2007 @ 9:44 am
The high seas has been seen from time immemoriable as belonging to no country or individual but open to those willing to take the risk and invest the labor necessary to derive benefit from the abundant resources the seas contain.
The UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA) was set up to control development of the worlds undersea minerals resources within international waters. It has been a complete failure to date.
The Seabed Authority is in disarray having come under relentless attack for not protecting the rights of humanity from encroachments like that planned in the Arctic Commons by Russia.
There are increasing calls for the disbandment of the seabed authority in its current form so as to allow private enterprise to take over the oceans minerals development.
Free enterprise is responsible for all the worlds shipping, cruise lines and fishing which moves 95% of the world’s products and feeds millions of people. The UN has no business interfering there.
ISA treaty should be abrogated as it is without customary legal foundation and plainly wrong.
As a non signing state party to the convention the US is not currently bound by any of LOST’s absurd rules, and so it should remain.
The carrot of US access to the estimated 400 billion barrels of arctic oil and gas being dangled in front of the senate is completely bogus. Article 76 of the law also allows countries to extend their submarine claims beyond the 200-mile limit only if they can provide solid scientific evidence that the continental shelf under their territory extends beneath the ocean beyond 200 miles. If the US signs LOST it will not gain any of the arctic oil as LOST rules preclude any claim extension beyond the Alaska 200 mile zone as the US continental shelf only extends an average of 50-100 miles from shore.
A US company (see; http://www.unoilgas.com )made a solid hydrocarbons rights claim to the Arctic Oceans Commons under customary international law on May 9th 2006. This claim gives the US priority over developing the Arctic oil and gas resources with or without LOST.
Comment on October 11, 2007 @ 6:06 pm