Overwhelming and consistent bipartisan consensus for U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea

Since at least 1994, a strong base of support for accession to the Law of the Sea Convention in the United States has existed in the federal government, industry and civil society. It is likely that no other treaty has ever been so widely supported and yet failed to be put to a vote in the Senate for such a long duration. The Defense Department, the State Department, the Commerce Department, the U.S. Coast Guard, the oil industry, the shipping industry, and the fishing sector, as well as environmental and conservation non-governmental organizations and religious organizations all support the treaty.[4] Additionally, both the National Commission on Oceans Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission in their recent reports strongly urged immediate action by the Senate and accession to the Convention.

Further reflecting broad bipartisan support, in a highly unusual statement in the history of U.S. treaty ratification practice, all living former Legal Advisers of the U.S. Department of State issued a joint letter on April l7, 2004 to Senators William H. Frist (then Majority Leader), Richard G. Lugar (then Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations), and John W. Warner and Carl Levin (respectively, then Chairman and Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services.[5] In that letter, the eight former Legal Advisers wrote:

We are unanimous in our view that it is in the best interests of the United States that the Senate, at its earliest opportunity, grant its advice and consent to United States accession to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and to United States ratification of the 1994 Implementing Agreement that modifies Part XI of the LOS Convention.