ENVIRONMENT | Protecting our natural resources
20 November 2008
Law of the Sea Convention Enjoys Broad U.S. Support
Secretary of state’s legal adviser urges Senate to ratify treaty
Washington — The Bush administration strongly supports ratifying the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention, according to senior State Department official John B. Bellinger III.
Bellinger, the legal adviser to the secretary of state and former legal adviser to the National Security Council, outlined the administration’s position in a November 3 speech to the Law of the Sea Institute.
The 1982 treaty sets a common legal framework for managing and conserving marine resources. Key provisions include methods for establishing rights of navigation and access to resources on and under the ocean floor and a procedure to settle marine-related disputes between countries.
The United States is not yet among the more than 150 countries, including Russia, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and most European nations, that have ratified the treaty. However, the United States is now in voluntary compliance with all aspects of the convention.
The U.S. Senate has not voted on whether to approve the treaty. In the U.S. system of government, the executive branch negotiates and signs international agreements but most such agreements cannot be binding on the United States until ratified by a two-thirds vote of approval in the Senate.
President Reagan refused to support the treaty because of concerns that access to deep seabed minerals would be restricted (Part XI) and cause harm to U.S. economic interests. In response to the fall of Communist governments beginning in 1989, Part XI was modified. President Bush supports ratifying the treaty.
In 2004, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the convention, but it was not brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
“I don’t know of any treaty so widely supported,” David Caron, co-director of the Law of the Sea Institute at the Berkeley School of Law in California, said in an interview with Public Broadcasting Service in August. “It gives us procedures; it gives us common language and will facilitate greatly the U.S. advancing its own interests.”
Bellinger said that after careful review in 2003 by a wide range of government agencies, the White House decided to “strongly support” signing the treaty. “After plumbing the depths of the issue — and diving into the details — I have concluded that joining the convention is the right thing to do.”
NATIONAL SECURITY, ECONOMICS, MARINE PROTECTION
In his speech, Bellinger said the treaty supports U.S. national security and economic interests and will protect the marine environment and its natural resources.
At a time when the United States is conducting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and faces increased threats from around the world, the treaty guarantees military and commercial vessels navigational rights through all oceans, including the right of innocent passage through foreign territorial seas. For this reason, all branches of the U.S. military support joining the treaty, according to Bellinger.
The treaty also codifies sovereign rights over all ocean resources. The United States has one of the longest coastlines in the world, and the treaty would “maximize legal certainty regarding U.S. rights to energy resources in vast offshore areas,” particularly around Alaska, Bellinger said.
Another benefit of the treaty is that it establishes obligations for protecting oceans from pollution. According to Bellinger, the treaty would balance navigation rights with environmental protection.
“As the nation with the world’s largest navy, an extensive coastline and a continental shelf with enormous oil and gas reserves, and substantial shipping interests, the United States certainly has much more to gain than lose from joining the Law of the Sea Convention.”
WIDESPREAD SUPPORT
Bellinger cited widespread support for the treaty throughout the U.S. government.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the national security adviser wrote letters supporting the treaty, as have several Cabinet members, including the secretaries of Homeland Security, Interior and Commerce. The second-ranking officials at the departments of State and Defense both testified in support of the treaty at a Senate hearing in September 2007.
Representatives of the oil and gas, shipping and telecommunications industries also testified in favor of the treaty before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In October 2007, the committee voted to support the treaty and recommended that the full Senate vote in favor, but opponents used procedural maneuvers to prevent the full Senate from taking up the issue.
“In my view, it is most unfortunate that a small but vocal minority — armed with a series of flawed arguments — has imposed upon the United States a delay that is contrary to our interests,” Bellinger said.
“I hope too much time does not elapse before the United States joins the convention and is able to place its rights on the firmest legal footing and take its seat at the table with the other parties to the convention as they make decisions affecting the world’s oceans.”
