Law of the Sea Treaty Battle Surfaces in the Senate

WASHINGTON, DC, March 24, 2004 (ENS) - President George W. Bush and his administration are in support of Senate ratification for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a top State Department official told a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.

John Turner is U.S. assistant secretary of state for oceans policy. (Photo courtesy State Department)

Senator James Inhofe, Republican chairman of the Senate Environment Committee and a critic of the treaty, cited published newspaper accounts reporting that the Bush administration was retreating from its effort to win Senate endorsement for the treaty under pressure from conservatives who believe it gives the United Nations too much power.

Turner rebutted those reports. "I wouldn't be here testifying before you if there was any retreat or change of position of the administration," Turner said. He expressed the "full support" of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and key national security agencies, he said.

The 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention became legally binding in 1994 after it was ratified by 60 countries. Now ratified by 143 countries, the treaty has been called by the former Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral James Watkins, "the foundation of public order of the oceans."

It sets forth standards for navigating the oceans by commercial and military vessels, fishing on the open seas, mining the sea bed, laying communications cable, and protecting the marine environment.

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma presides over an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

President Bill Clinton sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, but it stalled on opposition from Senator Jesse Helms, then the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

In February, the Foreign Relations Committee, now chaired by Republican Senator Richard Lugar, unanimously approved the treaty after listening to testimony from dozens of witnesses during two hearings in October 2003.

“Our hearings revealed broad support for U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention. They also revealed the need for U.S. accession to be completed swiftly," Lugar wrote in the March 8, 2004 issue of "Navy Times."

In its report, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed its belief that the Convention "advances important U.S. interests" in a number of areas.

"It advances U.S. national security interests by preserving the rights of navigation and overflight across the world’s oceans, on which our military relies to protect U.S. interests around the world, and it enhances the protection of these rights by providing binding mechanisms to enforce them."

Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

"It advances U.S. interests in the protection of the environment by creating obligations binding on all States to protect and preserve the marine environment from pollution from a variety of sources, and by establishing a framework for further international action to combat pollution."

"Becoming party to the Convention also advances the ability of the United States to play a leadership role in global oceans issues, including by allowing the United States to participate fully in institutions created by the Convention such as the International Seabed Authority, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea," the Lugar committee report states.

The current urgency over U.S. ratification arises because the treaty is open for amendment for the first time later this year. Turner reminded the Senate Environment Committee that the treaty will be open to amendments, whether the United States participates or not. "It seems to me the United States ought to join now," Turner said.

He said he found it "unbelievable" that the United States might not be participating as Russia and other countries start staking out mining claims on the continental shelves.

At the most recent annual meeting of Parties to the treaty in June 2003, Russia was the first country to submit the delineation of its continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical miles that is agreed under the treaty to be the limit of any country's sphere of governance.

Looking offshore of Mona Island, Puerto Rico in U.S. territory (Photo by Erik Zobrist courtesy NOAA)

In the 2002 to 2003 time period, the ISA considered the first set of annual reports by seven registered pioneer investors, as well as proposals for regulations for prospecting and exploration for polymetallic sulphides and cobalt rich ferromanganese crusts.

The Bush administration does not want the United States to be left behind in the rush to mine the seabed.

Turner told the Senate Environment Committee that the United States would not need to change any environmental laws or enforcement practices as a result of ratification.

Also, U.S. ratification would promote the Bush administration initiative against weapons proliferation by promoting cooperation with other countries under a common legal framework for boarding and intercepting vessels, Turner said.

Critics of the treaty fear that the material wealth of the seas would be shared among nations under the jurisdiction of the United Nations.

Frank Gaffney (left) with Senator James Inhofe at a press conference of Americans for Missile Defense, July 31 2001. (Photo credit unknown)

But Senator Lugar says that the "basic tenets of the treaty" have been U.S. policy since first enunciated by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. "Over the next dozen years the U.S. won in negotiations on the questionable aspects of the treaty, and signed on in 1994," Lugar says, but if the United States is not party to the Convention when amendments are considered, "U.S. ability to protect Convention rights that we fought hard to achieve will be significantly diminished."

A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the presumptive Democratic candidate for President in November, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry says "as a longtime supporter of this treaty" he is in favor of ratification.

Kerry as the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard, warned that provisions of the treaty must not limit the United States' ability to pass laws in its own interests. "Congress must also be assured that we will have the flexibility to enact protections here at home in the absence of international action, or that are more stringent than those that can be agreed upon internationally," he said in a statement published with the committee's report.

On security issues, Kerry said, the treaty "strikes a careful balance between the rights of free passage and the ability of coastal states to protect their borders." He said the United States must ensure that ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention "will not interfere with our ability to protect our ocean borders from terrorist threats."

If a ratification resolution passes the Senate Environment Committee, the Law of the Sea Convention goes to the full Senate where approval of a treaty requires a two-thirds vote in favor. The House of Representatives does not vote because it has no constitutional authority over treaties.

The 14th Meeting of States Parties to the Law of the Sea Convention is scheduled from June 14 to 18, in New York.

The Law of the Sea Convention and related agreements are online at: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm

The Lugar Foreign Relations Committee report with history from the U.S. point of view is online at: http://lugar.senate.gov/sfrc/seareport.pdf