A solemn international treaty known as the Law of the Sea Convention will celebrate its 25th anniversary this December, and for 25 years the mere mention of its name has been enough to induce deep slumber. Yet for all kinds of reasons - not least growing fears about the availability of energy resources - people are finally paying attention. That includes the Senate, where right-wing scare tactics and official inertia have long blocked the treaty's ratification, leaving America as the only major power standing on the sidelines.
That could change this fall, when the treaty will again be presented for Senate approval. One reason for optimism is that President Bush has added his voice to a diverse pro-treaty coalition that includes the environmental community, fishing interests, the oil and gas industry, the shipping industry, the State Department and the Navy.
But the main reason is this: unless the United States joins up, it could very well lose out in what is shaping up as a mad scramble to lay claim to what are believed to be immense deposits of oil, gas and other resources under the Arctic ice - deposits that are becoming more and more accessible as the earth warms and the ice melts.
The Law of the Sea will provide the forum for determining who gets what. The law gives each nation control over its own coastal waters - an "exclusive economic zone" extending 200 miles offshore. The rest is regarded as international waters, subject to agreed-upon rules governing fishing, protection of the marine environment, navigation and mining on the ocean floor. A country can claim territory and mineral deposits beyond the 200-mile limit, but only if it can prove that the seabed is a physical extension of its continental shelf.
Claims and disputes will be resolved by arbitration panels established by the treaty. The Russians, the Canadians and the Danes are all busily staking claims to thousands of square miles of the Arctic seabed beyond their 200-mile zones; the Russians have already planted a flag 15,000 feet under the North Pole. And two weeks ago, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, Healy, embarked on the third in a series of polar mapping expeditions to help strengthen the United States' territorial claims to the seabed off Alaska.
But the United States will have a hard time pressing those claims unless it ratifies the treaty and gets a seat at the negotiating table. One of the main right-wing arguments over the years is that the treaty would threaten American sovereignty by impeding unfettered exploitation of the ocean’s resources - a "giant giveaway of American wealth," in the words of one critic. The facts suggest just the reverse. By not signing, we could easily find ourselves out of the hunt altogether.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Law of the Sea Convention: NY Times Editorial
We've previously discussed (most recently, here) the latest push to get the Senate to provide its advice and consent to ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention. These efforts (or, at least, their most recent iteration) began this spring, and it appears clear that the strategy from the beginning (apparently a coordinated one between the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - Senators Biden and Lugar - and representatives of the administration) was to promote public knowledge and support of the Convention, building up to hearings and a vote this fall. That outreach has been successful, if the string of op-eds and newspaper endorsements is any indication. Today, the New York Times adds its support. The editorial focuses on the Arctic Ocean seabed (and the natural resources underneath) and asserts that the United States will lose out on the potential wealth to be found there if it doesn't join the Convention. The Times's argument is hardly novel; indeed, it has been quite common ever since Russia and Canada made their very public claims over large swaths of the Arctic this summer. Russia's claims in particular have been a great and unanticipated boon to supporters of the Convention, who had previously focused their arguments on the the treaty's national security benefits. Russian expansionism, particularly at U.S. expense, still riles up Americans more than talk of the right of innocent passage. Here's the editorial:
