UNCLOS codifies essential rights and freedoms U.S. forces need to operate -- our non-party status is putting them at risk

The Convention codifies navigation rights and freedoms essential for the global mobility of our armed forces and the sustainment of our combat troops. Benefits include:

• a 12 nautical mile limit to territorial seas
• innocent passage through territorial seas
• archipelagic sea lanes passage though island nations like Indonesia
• laying and maintaining submarine cables for communication warship right of approach and visit
• sovereign immunity of warships and public vessels
• transit passage in international straits (and their approaches)
• high seas freedoms in exclusive economic zones (EEZs)

The last two are the most important. Transit passage gives us freedom of movement above, on, and below the surface in critical chokepoints such as the Straits of Singapore and Malacca, Hormuz, and Gibraltar, and the Bab el Mandeb. Exercising high seas freedoms in foreign EEZs includes conducting military activities.

Our non-party status is hurting us. It denies us a seat at the table when the 155 parties to the Convention interpret (or try to amend) those rights and freedoms; it denies us use of an important enforcement tool against coastal state encroachment (binding dispute resolution); it hinders us in our efforts to recruit more countries to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI); it creates a seam between us and our coalition partners; it prevents us from gaining legal certainty for our extended continental shelf in the Arctic (and elsewhere); and it denies U.S. companies access to deep seabed mining sites.

Relying on customary international law as the basis for those rights and freedoms is an unwise and unnecessary risk. Our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen put their lives on the line, every day, to preserve the rights and freedoms codified in the Convention; they deserve to be on the firmest legal ground possible as they go into harm’s way; they deserve the legal certainty that accrues from treaty based rights.