Experts Differ Over Wisdom of Joining Sea Treaty
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
June 25, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - With President Bush renewing calls for the Senate to ratify a controversial United Nations convention dealing with the sea and seabed, policy experts in Washington, D.C., met to discuss whether the treaty would be in the best interests of the United States but found little common ground.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which has been ratified by more than 150 of the world body's 192 member states, says it seeks to create "with due regard for the sovereignty of all states, a legal order for the seas and oceans which will facilitate international communication, and will promote the peaceful uses of the seas and oceans, the equitable and efficient utilization of their resources, the conservation of their living resources, and the study, protection and preservation of the marine environment."

Although the treaty entered into force in 1994, the U.S. has not ratified it -- largely due to concerns over Section XI, which says that no state can claim sovereignty over any part of international waters or its resources beyond the 12 nautical-mile limit around its own territory.

Instead, it establishes an International Seabed Authority (ISA) to authorize seabed exploration and mining and to collect and distribute the seabed mining royalties.

Critics say this runs contrary to free-market principles, and some worry that the ISA will become yet another bloated U.N. bureaucracy. There is also concern about where the revenue may end up.

There is also strong support for the treaty, however, and Bush is calling for ratification. In a statement last month, the president said joining the treaty will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our armed forces worldwide.

"It will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain," Bush said. "Accession will promote U.S. interests in the environmental health of the oceans, and it will give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted."

Conservatives are not convinced. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, said during Friday's discussion at the Heritage Foundation that the Bush administration is "championing a treaty that I believe will be extremely harmful to our sovereignty."

The treaty would create a "world government socialist enterprise," Gaffney argued -- a "supra-national government ... that will only grow as it gains revenues as it gains the authority to rule the world."

"It will certainly -- as these things usually do -- end up impinging upon U.S. interests, certainly our freedom of action and our sovereignty. We should remain firmly in opposition to this treaty," he said, stressing particularly section XI.

Speaking in favor of ratification, Rear Admiral William D. Baumgartner, judge advocate general for the U.S. Coast Guard, said Gaffney's arguments "are not rooted in reality."

UNCLOS would give the U.S. significant access to deep sea mining and benefit the "economic, safety and environmental interests of the United States," he said, adding that being a party to the treaty is "an absolutely vital component" of American security.

Joining the treaty would help the U.S. protect the military's ability to freely navigate the oceans, while remaining outside, on the other hand, would be "an impediment to anti-terrorism activities," Baumgartner added.

He said that in the absence of international law, the U.S. would be obliged to abide by customary laws, which are "ill-defined and subject to change."

Gaffney noted that the U.S. has been observing most of the treaty and could continue to do so. "We have the benefits of doing so without assuming any of the liabilities of being a member of this treaty."

If the U.S. joined, he said, laws could change within the treaty, "and to our detriment, because then we will be obliged to observe them."

Baumgartner disagreed on that point, saying that if the U.S. was not a party, it would have no say in how any future amendments are developed. "Those changes won't have our voice," he said.