Risk that tribunal would interfere with US military activities, already low, would be even lower if US was party to the convention

The role of the Law of the Sea Tribunal is to resolve disputes over the Convention. The Convention mandates that the Tribunal resolve all disputes, except those involving military activities. Opponents of the Convention argue that the tribunal could dispute U.S. designations of certain activities as military, forcing the U.S. to limit military operations. Some even claim American “citizens could be dragged before politically motivated foreign jurists.”¹⁸

Professor John Norton Moore, the leading U.S. expert on the law of the sea, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the chances of the Tribunal undermining U.S. military operations was comparable to that of a meteorite striking the capitol building.¹⁹ Still, administration officials have taken precautions. Upon joining the Convention, the United States would submit a declaration stipulating that it is acceding on the condition that states themselves have the authority to decide whether activities are military.²⁰ Opponents think that even this precaution leaves a chance of the Tribunal harassing the U.S. military.

As a party to the Convention, however, the United States can nominate the judges to sit on the tribunal, rendering this wildly remote possibility even more unlikely. If the United States does not ratify the Convention, it has no control over the decisions the Tribunal reaches. The Tribunal will never have power over the U.S. military, but its decisions will form precedents that will help resolve future maritime disputes. Those precedents would affect U.S. interests.