U.S. has no standing in CLCS until it ratifies convention

The United States cannot currently participate in the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which oversees ocean delineation on the outer limits of the extended continental shelf (outer continental shelf). Even though it is collecting scientific evidence to support eventual claims off its Atlantic, Gulf, and Alaskan coasts, the United States, without becoming party to the convention, has no standing in the CLCS. This not only precludes it from making a submission claiming the sovereign rights over the resources of potentially more than one million square kilometers of the OCS, it also denies the United States any right to review or contest other claims that appear to be overly expansive, such as Russia’s in the Arctic. This is especially urgent this year, as the commission will review an influx of claims expected in May 2009, the deadline for twenty- six states to make their submissions based on the procedural clock that began ticking when they ratified the convention. (The United States would have ten years to make its claim if it were to join the convention.)