By Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. and Ben Friedman
International Herald Tribune
April 21, 2005
WASHINGTON In spite of the Bush administration's recent calls for quick passage, some conservatives are campaigning vigorously to block ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention, a treaty governing the use of the world's oceans, in the U.S. Senate. That's worrisome because the convention, a treaty the United States has spent decades perfecting, is in America's, and the world's, interests and should be passed now. The treaty - which sets up rules about navigation, fishing and ocean protection and establishes an International Seabed Authority to oversee ocean-floor mining - has been approved by 145 countries and is supported by groups across the American political spectrum, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
But using claims that are simply false, a few senators and conservative groups have pressured the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, into blocking a Senate vote. Opponents of the convention claim that it makes an international agency responsible for oceans, undermining American sovereignty. The truth is that the United States does not have sovereignty over the oceans now. No country does. Each nation does have control over its territorial waters and rights to its exclusive economic zone that extends 200 miles offshore.
Instead, the areas governed by the treaty begin where national control ends. It creates an organization to distribute property rights for the seabed outside the exclusive economic zones and to settle competing claims to the ocean floor. Such an arrangement could actually help American companies by setting up a process for them to get rights to extract gas from areas beyond the American economic zone.
In addition, opponents claim that the convention endangers U.S. national security. In fact, it will increase security. The U.S. Navy supports the convention because it ensures the right of free passage. Like commercial ships, naval vessels rely on the rights of innocent passage and freedom of the seas, legal protections enshrined in customary international law.
But customary international law is weaker than treaty law. China, Iran, North Korea and others have challenged the right of free passage through their waters. These states cannot stop the American Navy from going where it wants to go, but they can raise the costs of doing so. By signing the convention, the United States would strengthen navigational rights and lower the cost of military deployment.
Opponents also assert that the convention would undermine U.S. efforts to interdict shipments of materials used for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles. This argument is based on a misunderstanding of international law and America's nonproliferation policy.
The claim is that because the convention protects ships' freedoms, joining would prohibit the U.S. Navy and its allies from stopping suspect shipments. But as noted above, these constraints on U.S. conduct already exist. Treaties the United States acceded to in 1958 codify freedom of the seas and the right of innocent passage. The convention imposes no new restrictions on the United States' ability to interdict weapons shipments.
In fact, America can use the Law of the Sea to fight proliferation. It would take long negotiations, but the parties to the convention might agree to make proliferation grounds for interdiction. That would strengthen the American-sponsored Proliferation Security Initiative, in which nations share information in an effort to curb trafficking in materials for unconventional weapons.
Now, nations in the initiative must adhere to international law on the right of passage; the right to interdict weapons shipments would be a huge step forward. By staying outside the convention, the United States forgoes this chance to change the rules even as it stays bound by the curbs that are already in place.
American national interests demand the Senate's speedy ratification of the convention. How long can the ideology of a few trump the interests of the rest?
Thomas Graham Jr. is the chairman of the Bipartisan Security Group at the Global Security Institute, which works to abolish nuclear weapons. Ben Friedman is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
