Odd Man Out at Sea
By THAD W. ALLEN, RICHARD L. ARMITAGE and JOHN J. HAMRE
NYT
IT’S been in place for nearly 30 years; nearly 160 countries (plus the European Union) have signed it. But the United States has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a result, the United States, the world’s leading maritime power, is at a military and economic disadvantage.
The convention codifies widely accepted principles on territorial waters (which it defines as those extending 12 miles out to sea), shipping lanes and ocean resources. It also grants each signatory exclusive fishing and mining rights within 200 miles of its coast (called the exclusive economic zone). Although the United States originally voted to create the convention and negotiated many provisions to its advantage, Congress has never ratified it.
With nearly 12,500 miles of coastline, 360 major commercial ports and the world’s largest exclusive economic zone, the United States has a lot to gain from signing the convention. It is the only legal framework that exists for managing international waters; joining it would allow us to secure international recognition of a claim to the continental shelf as far as 600 miles beyond our exclusive economic zone in order to explore and conserve the resource-rich Arctic as the polar ice cap recedes. It would also provide American companies with a fair and stable legal framework to invest in mining projects in the deep seabed.
Ratification makes sense militarily as well. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the convention “codifies navigation and overflight rights and high seas freedoms that are essential for the global mobility of our armed forces.” In other words, it enhances national security by giving our Navy additional flexibility to operate on the high seas and in foreign exclusive economic zones and territorial seas. This is particularly important in the Asia Pacific region and the South China Sea, where tensions among China, Japan and Southeast Asian nations have increased because of conflicting interpretations of what constitutes territorial and international waters.
(More here.)
NYT
IT’S been in place for nearly 30 years; nearly 160 countries (plus the European Union) have signed it. But the United States has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a result, the United States, the world’s leading maritime power, is at a military and economic disadvantage.
The convention codifies widely accepted principles on territorial waters (which it defines as those extending 12 miles out to sea), shipping lanes and ocean resources. It also grants each signatory exclusive fishing and mining rights within 200 miles of its coast (called the exclusive economic zone). Although the United States originally voted to create the convention and negotiated many provisions to its advantage, Congress has never ratified it.
With nearly 12,500 miles of coastline, 360 major commercial ports and the world’s largest exclusive economic zone, the United States has a lot to gain from signing the convention. It is the only legal framework that exists for managing international waters; joining it would allow us to secure international recognition of a claim to the continental shelf as far as 600 miles beyond our exclusive economic zone in order to explore and conserve the resource-rich Arctic as the polar ice cap recedes. It would also provide American companies with a fair and stable legal framework to invest in mining projects in the deep seabed.
Ratification makes sense militarily as well. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the convention “codifies navigation and overflight rights and high seas freedoms that are essential for the global mobility of our armed forces.” In other words, it enhances national security by giving our Navy additional flexibility to operate on the high seas and in foreign exclusive economic zones and territorial seas. This is particularly important in the Asia Pacific region and the South China Sea, where tensions among China, Japan and Southeast Asian nations have increased because of conflicting interpretations of what constitutes territorial and international waters.
(More here.)
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