News

The new Quadrennial Defense Review, published on February 1, 2010, provides the first official Department of Defense endorsement of the Law of the Sea Convention during the Obama Administration. The QDR uses US interests in a changing Arctic to illustrate the reasons for its endorsement of US accession to the Convention.

The effect of changing climate on the Department's operating environment is evident in the maritime commons of the Arctic. The opening of the Arctic waters in the decades ahead which will permit seasonal commerce and transit presents a unique opportunity to work collaboratively in multilateral forums to promote a balanced approach to improving human and environmental security in the region. In that effort, DoD must work with the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security to address gaps in Arctic communications, domain awareness, search and rescue, and environmental observation and forecasting capabilities to support both current and future planning and operations. To support cooperative engagement in the Arctic, DoD strongly supports accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. (emphasis added)

Quadrennial Defense Review report, February 2010, page number 86 (page 108 of the PDF file)
Available on-line at: http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/issues/graphics/Defense-Review-2010.PDF

Published today on the Council on Foreign Relations website:

Climate Right for U.S. Joining Law of Sea Convention

Authors:
Scott G. Borgerson, Visiting Fellow for Ocean Governance
Thomas R. Pickering, Vice Chairman, Hills & Company

December 23, 2009

Delegates unable to strike a grand compromise at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen last week should look to the UN Law of the Sea Conference for inspiration on how to successfully negotiate a complicated global accord. Settling on an agreed set of rules for the world's oceans was also a massive undertaking, requiring decades of patience, hard work, and deft diplomacy to iron out an agreement that would be acceptable to a diverse community of nations. Facilitated by principled leadership by the United States, ultimately 157 countries have now signed and ratified the Law of the Sea Convention, which provides the overarching framework for managing the world's oceans and what lies above and beneath them. This year marks the fifteenth anniversary since the treaty has come into force.

Yet despite its central role shaping the convention and securing significant amendments to address outstanding concerns, the United States has failed to join. The United States remains among only a handful of countries with a coastline, including Syria, North Korea, and Iran, to not yet accede to the treaty. While remaining non-party to the convention might seem a point of diplomatic inconsequence, emerging issues like the melting Arctic make joining increasingly urgent. The polar ice cap is melting at an unprecedented clip, and the Arctic Ocean is on pace to be seasonally ice-free within a decade. In the next few years, do not be surprised if the sea ice covering the North Pole disappears for the first time in recorded history. As the Copenhagen process drove home, this fastest-warming region on earth is an imperative for action to reduce green house gas emissions, yet it is also relevant for a host of traditional geostrategic maritime issues covered under the Law of the Sea.

Arctic Maritime Opportunities

For starters, the retreating ice is creating more effective shipping shortcuts like the Northeast Passage over Russia that opened to commercial navigation for the first time this past summer. This sea change is also yielding access to an estimated quarter of the world's remaining hydrocarbon reserves, which has set off a full court press among Arctic nations to extend the legal definition of their continental margins. Virgin fishing stocks are also becoming accessible, spurring the recent decision by Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke to secure exploitation of some of these resources in domestic waters and helping to inspire President Barack Obama to charter a White House Ocean Policy Task Force whose final recommendations are expected any day. Despite these opportunities and threats, by stubbornly remaining non-party to the Law of the Sea Convention, the United States remains hobbled on the Arctic's geopolitical sidelines.

The United States is unilaterally freezing itself out of important international policymaking bodies, literally forfeiting a seat at decision-making tables. One very important forum where the United States has no say is the commission vested with the authority to validate country's claims to extend their exclusive economic zones on the outer continental shelf (OCS), a process that is the last great partitioning of sovereign space on earth.

By being the last significant maritime nation in the world to formally join the treaty, the United States is forgoing an opportunity to extend its national jurisdiction over a vast amount of ocean area on its Arctic, Atlantic, and Gulf Coasts--equal to almost half the size of the Louisiana Purchase--while simultaneously abdicating an opportunity to have a say in deliberations over other nation's claims elsewhere. This was highlighted by Russia's stunt to plant a flag at the North Pole's sea floor. The United States also marginalizes itself in the International Seabed Authority, the UN body established by the convention to oversee deep seabed mining, an important emerging industry.

Debating the value of international agreements is a great U.S. pastime, but the truth here is that the convention actually allows for an expansion of U.S. sovereignty--extending American sea borders; guaranteeing the freedom of movement of ships and airplanes for the world's most powerful navy; and enhancing legal tools to combat scourges at sea such as piracy, drug trafficking, human smuggling, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Potential participants in U.S.-organized flotillas in the Indian Ocean to protect vital shipping routes from piratical attacks and U.S.-led coalitions to prosecute North Korean contraband shipments under the Proliferation Security Initiative rightly question why they should assist the United States in enforcing the rule of law when it refuses to recognize the convention that guides the actions of virtually every other nation.

National Interests in other Waters

The Law of the Sea is also an important vehicle for the United States in coordinating action on a host of environmental crises, from collapsing fisheries and the ravages of climate change like ocean acidification and sea level rise, to the growing problem of marine pollution. The convention is also critical to U.S. economic security as it governs commercial activities on, in, and under the world's oceans. With one-third of the world's oil and gas already produced offshore, the future of hydrocarbon extraction is moving into ever-deeper waters. Deep-seabed mining is also an emerging industry, and the convention establishes the legal regime for extracting mineral resources from the ocean floor. Joining the central agreement governing maritime issues is directly germane to a maritime power where half of its (and the world's) population lives within fifty miles of a coast, 90 percent of all its trade is ferried by sea, and U.S. ocean-dependant industries contribute $138 billion to the nation's economy.

Why is it imperative for the United States to join the convention after all these years, and why now in the midst of investing so much energy into trying to draft a new climate agreement? First, the loss of a unique opportunity; the United States is experiencing a convergence of circumstances that includes the ascendance of a national security strategy founded on conflict prevention and partnership building, a community of nations eager for renewed American multilateralism, and a formidable list of ocean challenges demanding coordinated policy action.

Second, officially becoming party to the treaty would provide the legal foundation necessary to protect and enhance U.S. sovereign and security interests; assure unilateral rights and jurisdiction in offshore zones and the freedom of passage for U.S. military forces in strategic waterways; and ensure protection for U.S. maritime research interests. And lastly and equally significant on the heels of a climate conference that failed expectations, the United States would seize an opportunity to restore the mantle of international leadership over nearly three-quarters of the earth. This would also send the right message at the right time to the international community that the United States can be trusted to negotiate complicated treaties in good faith.

The United States joining the Law of the Sea Convention enjoys broad bipartisan support, including endorsement by both the two previous presidential administrations; is championed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and leading senators of both parties on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and has been recommended by every major ocean constituency. This broad consortium needs President Obama's support early in 2010 to help guide the treaty through the Senate approval process before Washington can credibly help lead a new comprehensive climate regime. The political stars are aligned in the Senate for passage, and a formal endorsement of the convention by the president in the coming weeks would send the necessary signal to the Congress and the world that the United States is ready to join this widely accepted corpus of international law.

Scott G. Borgerson is the visiting fellow for ocean governance at the Council on Foreign Relations. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering is a former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

The current issue of "Navy," the monthly publication of the Association of the United States Navy, includes an article analyzing the LOS Convention in terms of Navy and National interests and comes to the conclusion that the United States should join the Convention. The concluding paragraph of the article reads:

In short, the US stands only to gain by ratifying the LOS Treaty. The rapidly changing environment of the Arctic region makes it all the more urgent for the US to join. Receding ice due to global warming has opened up new waterways and led to an increase in development of the region’s vast oil and gas reserves, and countries are laying claims to these resources. By joining UNCLOS, we would be able to secure the rights over resources in the Arctic and play a prominent role in the governance of this region and beyond.

You may view a PDF of the full article by clicking the link below:

View the full article at the AUSN site

On March 10th, 1983, and after months of consideration of the implications of the adoption of the final act of the Law of the Sea Conference and the signature of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea by 119 nations, President Ronald Reagan issued his statement of US Oceans policy. After noting that the US would not join the 1982 Convention because of its provisions related to the resources of the deep seabed beyond national jurisdiction, he went on to say that the balance of the Convention was in the interest of the United States and would be observed by the US. He went on to declare the non-seabeds parts to be "fair and balanced results" and specified three areas for specific comment:

Today I am announcing three decisions to promote and protect the oceans interests of the United States in a manner consistent with those fair and balanced results in the Convention and international law.

First, the United States is prepared to accept and act in accordance with the balance of interests relating to traditional uses of the oceans -- such as navigation and overflight. In this respect, the United States will recognize the rights of other states in the waters off their coasts, as reflected in the Convention, so long as the rights and freedoms of the United States and others under international law are recognized by such coastal states.

Second, the United States will exercise and assert its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms on a worldwide basis in a manner that is consistent with the balance of interests reflected in the convention. The United States will not, however, acquiesce in unilateral acts of other states designed to restrict the rights and freedoms of the international community in navigation and overflight and other related high seas uses.

Third, I am proclaiming today an Exclusive Economic Zone in which the United States will exercise sovereign rights in living and nonliving resources within 200 nautical miles of its coast. This will provide United States jurisdiction for mineral resources out to 200 nautical miles that are not on the continental shelf. Recently discovered deposits there could be an important future source of strategic minerals.

In the rest of the statement, President Reagan went on to address related matters, such as the right of coastal states to manage marine scientific research in their EEZs and on their Continental Shelves, while noting that the US would not implement such a regime in spite of its legal right to do so.

At a time when the sportfishing organizations have questioned whether the LOS Convention would affect their rights at sea, it is well to note that 26 years ago President Reagan accepted the fisheries provisions of the Convention and they have been observed in US law and regulation ever since.

(click 'Read More" for full text of Reagan 1983 ocean Policy Statement)

An upgrade to the oceanlaw.org content management software now allows embedding of videos. This video dates back to the beginning of 2009 but is still timely in light of Secretary Clinton's recent letter to Senators Kerry and Lugar offering the State Department's assistance for hearings on the LOS Convention.

The following letter was sent to Sen. John F. Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee A similar letter was sent to Sen. Richard Lugar, Ranking Minority member of the Committee.

October 16, 2009

The Honorable John F. Kerry, Chairman
Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Mr. Chairman,

Recognizing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's intention to consider the Convention on the Law of the Sea, I offer my strong support for U.S. accession to the convention.

As you are aware, the convention protects and advances the national security, economic, and environmental interests of the United States. In particular, the convention codifies navigational rights and freedoms critical to U.S. military and commercial vessels and secures U.S. economic rights to natural resources off-shore. In addition, as a party, the United States would have access to procedures that would maximize international recognition and legal certainty for U.S. sovereign rights over offshore resources (including minerals) beyond 200 miles of our coastline.

The United States, as a major maritime power, the country with the largest exclusive economic zone, and one of the largest continental shelves, stands to gain more from this treaty in terms of economic and resource rights than any other country. Having a seat at the table as a party would allow the United States to participate more effectively in the interpretation and development of the convention and the ability to participate formally in its institutions.

As the committee proceeds toward hearings on the convention, the Department of State stands ready to facilitate the Senate's consideration of this treaty by providing witnesses, testimony, and overall support.

I appreciate your leadership in our efforts to gain the necessary support for advice and consent to accession of this vitally important treaty.

Sincerely yours,

(signed)

Hillary Rodham Clinton

It is an understatement to say that there is support for the Law of the Sea Convention in the state of Alaska. Three governors (including Sarah Palin) and three senators (two republican and one democrat) have endorsed the Convention, and the Alaskan state legislature endorsed joining the convention by overwhelming bipartisan margins earlier this year.

This week, the Anchorage Daily News stepped forward with its own endorsement of the LOS Convention. One hopes that in a contest between tangible benefits to Alaska and the nation and the unsubstantiated and ill-founded fears inflamed by unilateralist and isolationist groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the John Birch Society, US leaders in the Senate and the White House can step forward in the same way as leaders in Alaska have done.

Thursday's Anchorage Daily News brings enlightened self interest to the debate (or, at present, the lack of debate) over whether and when the Senate should act on the Law of the Sea Convention that has been before it for 15 years and under active consideration since 2003. After recognizing the resources that could be enclosed by a US claim to the extended shelf under the provisions of the LOS Convention and reviewing the history of the Convention before the Senate, the paper concludes "BOTTOM LINE: Alaska needs the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty."

Our view: Racing to resources
Alaska prospects uncertain as U.S. sits on the sidelines

(09/11/09 17:19:27)
Friday's front page carried a heart-warming example of international cooperation between the U.S. and our Canadian friends. Icebreakers from the two countries are doing joint surveys of the high arctic ocean floor. They're looking for geographic features that might enable the nations to make territorial claims that extend beyond the 200-mile limit now recognized in international law.

If the arctic holds rich resources beneath the international ocean floor, this is how the U.S. would claim our rightful share.

Only one problem for the U.S.: We won't be able to make any new claims to arctic ocean territory until we ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.

Every other arctic and industrialized nation has officially approved the treaty, which was first concluded in 1982 and revised to meet U.S. objections in 1994. At first the U.S. accepted all aspects of the treaty except for those saying how seabed mining in international waters would be administered and regulated. The 1994 revision cured U.S. objections. Since then the call to ratify the treaty has garnered impressive political support.

President George W. Bush supported ratification. The American Petroleum Institute did too. So have environmental organizations and the official U.S. commission on ocean policy. The Pentagon has said ratifying the treaty will be helpful to national security.

The treaty has won strong support in votes on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Conservative Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana was an enthusiastic supporter when he chaired the committee.

Here in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, the fifth-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, supports ratification. So does her Democratic counterpart Mark Begich. Republican Gov. Sean Parnell recently endorsed ratification as well.

So what's keeping the Senate from doing the right thing?

In 2004 Sen. Richard Lugar described the opposition this way: "Concerns have been expressed primarily by those who oppose virtually any multi-lateral agreement."

In other words, it's the crowd that thinks cooperating with other countries is a step toward one-world government.

But as Sen. Lugar has noted, the oceans beyond 200 miles are international territory now. The U.S. can be part of international agreements to manage those areas, or we can stay home and pout about having to cooperate with other countries. The treaty would give the U.S. a strong role in managing resource development in distant ocean waters. Those issues would not be handled through the United Nations General Assembly.

Sen. Lugar has described the treaty this way: It "expands the ability of American oil and natural gas companies to drill for resources in new areas, solidifies the Navy's rights to traverse the oceans, enshrines U.S. economic sovereignty over our Exclusive Economic Zone extending 200 miles off our shore, helps our ocean industries create jobs and reduces the prospects that Russia will be successful in claiming excessive portions of the Arctic." In the race to stake potentially valuable resource claims in the high arctic ocean, the U.S. is way behind. As soon as Congress finishes work on health care, the Senate should ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.

BOTTOM LINE: Alaska needs the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty.

It is also worth noting that Alaska's most recent governors (2 republican and 1 democrat), three current and recent senators (again, 2 republican and 2 democrat) and the entire legislature (by a vote of 34 to 4 in the Alaskan House and 15 to 2 in the Senate) have called for approval of the LOS Convention.

00 Enrolled HJR 22
01 Urging the United States Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
02 Sea (the Law of the Sea Treaty).
03 _______________
04 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:
05 WHEREAS, in August 2007, Russia sent two small submarines into the Arctic Ocean
06 to plant that nation's flag under the North Pole to support its territorial claim that its
07 continental shelf extends to the North Pole; and
08 WHEREAS Denmark is exploring whether a mountain range under the Arctic Ocean
09 is connected to Greenland, a territory of Denmark; and
10 WHEREAS Canada is considering the establishment of military bases to protect its 11 claim to the Northwest Passage; and
12 WHEREAS the actions taken by Russia, Denmark, and Canada have been exercised
13 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; and
14 WHEREAS the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea permits member
15 nations to claim an exclusive economic zone out to 200 nautical miles from shore, with an
16 exclusive sovereign right to explore, manage, and develop all living and nonliving resources,
17 including deep sea mining, within that exclusive economic zone; and
01 WHEREAS the United States Arctic Research Commission estimates that the United
02 Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea would permit the United States to lay claim
03 beyond the present 200-mile exclusive economic zone to an area of the northern seabed off
04 Alaska that is equal in size to California; and
05 WHEREAS 155 nations have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of
06 the Sea, including all allies of the United States and the world's maritime powers; and
07 WHEREAS ratification of the current form of the United Nations Convention on the
08 Law of the Sea has been pending before the United States Senate since 1994, and hearings on
09 the treaty were held by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1994,
10 2003, and 2004, and on September 27, 2007, and October 4, 2007; and
11 WHEREAS, despite favorable reports by the United States Senate Committee on
12 Foreign Relations regarding the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 2004
13 and 2007, the United States Senate has yet to vote on the ratification of the Convention; and
14 WHEREAS the United States, with 1,000 miles of Arctic coast off of the State of
15 Alaska, remains the only Arctic nation that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on
16 the Law of the Sea; and
17 WHEREAS, until the United States Senate votes to ratify the United Nations
18 Convention on the Law of the Sea, the United States may not have the authority to promote its
19 claims to an extended area of the continental shelf, refute the claim of authority by other
20 nations to exercise greater control over the Arctic, or take a permanent seat on the 21 International Seabed Authority Council; and
22 WHEREAS, until the United States ratifies the United Nations Convention on the
23 Law of the Sea, the United States cannot participate in deliberations to amend provisions of
24 the Convention that relate to the
25 (1) oil, gas, and mineral resources in the Arctic Ocean and other northern
26 waters;
27 (2) conduct of essential scientific research in the world's oceans;
28 (3) right of the United States to the use of the seas;
29 (4) rules of navigation;
30 (5) effect of the use of the seas on world economic development; and
31 (6) environmental concerns related to the use of the seas; and
01 WHEREAS the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will have an
02 important and beneficial effect on virtually all states, both coastal and noncoastal, because the
03 United States is heavily dependent on the use, development, and conservation of the world's
04 oceans and their resources; and
05 WHEREAS the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will not interfere
06 with the intelligence-gathering efforts of the United States or the navigational freedom of the
07 United States Navy; and
08 WHEREAS ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has
09 wide bipartisan support;
10 BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges the United States Senate
11 to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
12 COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Vice-
13 President of the United States and President of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable John F. Kerry,
14 Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; the Honorable Richard G. Lugar,
15 ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; the Honorable Lisa
16 Murkowski and the Honorable Mark Begich, U.S. Senators, members of the Alaska
17 delegation in Congress; and all other members of the United States Senate.

The news this weekend is that we have the year's first endorsement of US accession to the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea from inside the Executive Office of the President. CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley, joined by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen published an article in the Seattle times on the topic of stewardship of the Oceans in which they had this to say:

We strongly support ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The oceans have been called, "the last global commons," and their sustained global health can best be maintained by a stable, universally accepted convention that promotes the key interests of the United States, its allies and its trading partners. Ratification would ensure our ability to participate in interpreting and applying the convention to the changing realities of the global maritime environment and preserves our ability to protect our domestic interests, including our extended continental shelf claims.

View the Full article in a new page.

The hearings convened by Sen. Lisa Murkowski on August 20th keep bearing fruit. Here, from "Examiner.com", comes the statement of Sean Parnell, the new governor of Alaska. This news from Alaska somehow qualified as local DC news, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth:

Foreign Policy For much of its history, the Arctic has been both ungoverned and ungovernable. Even as the eight Arctic nations have increased economic activity, the Arctic climate has impeded economic and social development, transportation, and research. That era must end.

I strongly urge the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Once ratified, the treaty will allow us to claim jurisdiction over the offshore continental shelf behind the 200-mile limit. U.S. boundaries could grow into areas that may hold large deposits of oil, natural gas and other resources. Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norwayhave claims to Arctic territory under the auspices of the Law of the Sea. Without ratification, the U.S. cannot fully participate in adjudication of these claims.