Evidence: Most Popular
[MYTH] As a nonparty, the U.S. is allowed to search any ship that enters our EEZ to determine whether it could harm the United States or pollute the marine environment. Under the Convention, the U.S. Coast Guard or others would not be able to search any ship until the United Nations is notified and approves the right to search the ship.
- Under the Convention, the UN has no role in deciding when and where a foreign ship may be boarded.
- Under applicable treaty law – the 1958 conventions on the law of the sea – as well as customary international law, no nation has the right to arbitrarily search any ship that enters its EEZ to determine whether it could harm that national or pollute its marine environment. Nor would we want countries to have such a blanket “right,” because it would fundamentally undermine the freedom of navigation that benefits the United States more than any other nation.
- Thus, the description of both the status quo and the Convention’s provisions is incorrect. The Convention makes no change in our existing ability or authority to search ships entering our EEZ with regard to security or protection of the environment.
Most influential, though, may be support from the U.S. Navy, which is enamored of the treaty's guarantee of navigational freedom. Not that such freedom is threatened now: The Russian navy is rusting in port, China has yet to develop a blue water capability, and no country is impeding U.S. transit, commercial or military.
At the same time, some ambiguous provisions may impinge on freedoms U.S. shipping now enjoys. In Senate testimony last fall, State Department legal adviser William H. Taft IV noted the importance of conditioning acceptance "upon the understanding that each Party has the exclusive right to determine which of its activities are 'military activities' and that such determination is not subject to review." Whether other members will respect that claim is not at all certain. Admiral Michael G. Mullen, the vice chief of naval operations, acknowledges the possibility that a Law of the Sea tribunal could rule adversely and harm U.S. "operational planning and activities, and our security."
The Authority, though so far of modest size, would suffer from the same perverse incentives that afflict the U.N., since the United States would be responsible for 25 percent of the budget but easily outmaneuvered. Proposals by industrialized signatories to limit their contributions have so far received an unfriendly reception. Still, when it signed the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Clinton administration said there was no reason to worry, because the treaty proclaims that "all organs and subsidiary bodies to be established under the Convention and this Agreement shall be cost-effective." Right. Presumably just as cost-effective as the U.N.
In the case of the Arctic Ocean, the five Arctic coastal states are Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States. Russia ratified UNCLOS in 1997. In December 2001, Russian officials submitted a claim that 120 million hectares of underwater terrain between the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges be confirmed as a continuation of the Siberian shelf. Norway ratified UNCLOS in 1996 and submitted its claim in November 2006. Canada and Norway ratified UNCLOS in 2003 and 2004, respectively, and are in the process of preparing claims for submission. The United States has not ratified UNCLOS. However, the United States is working closely with Canada to gather and analyze data through the Extended Continental Shelf Project for the submission of Canada’s claim. This effort is led by the U.S. Continental Shelf Task Force, an interagency body, chaired by the Department of State with co-vice chairs from NOAA and the Department of the Interior. Both U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard representatives participate on the Task Force. According to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, the United States could lay claim to an area in the Arctic of about 450,000 square kilometers and the seabed resources therein. However, as a non-party to UNCLOS, the United States cannot participate as a member of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf; neither can the United States submit a claim under Article 76.
Myth: Ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty will create a United Nations bureaucracy. Fact: Not true. Ratifying the LOTS creates nothing. Ratifying the treaty will give the United States a seat on the already-formed International Seabed Authority. The International Seabed Authority has existed for over 20 years. The ISA is the international authority that grants exploration and mining and drilling permits to all nations. The ISA also creates clear, legally binding, protocols for ships while navigating foreign waters. This is long established, current international law. The U.S. opting not to join the ISA does nothing except prevent America from receiving mining and drilling permits, while also creating a gray area legally for our military and for U.S. companies when dealing with waterways belonging to foreign nations. That is why every U.S. business association, including the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, and every sitting military leader of a U.S. Command – including the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air force and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - supports the treaty’s ratification.
Myth: Ratifying the treaty will create a tax on US businesses. Fact: Wrong. The treaty creates U.S. property rights for vast mineral and oil wealth. The ISA simply grants permits to countries to mine and drill for resources thereby giving companies and countries title – something vital to the very foundation of property rights. One cannot hold a property right if one does not first have title. Once title is granted and resource development takes place, certain Reagan amendments go into effect. Ronald Reagan fought for certain mineral rights for the U.S. and he got them in the 1994 amendments to the treaty. That’s why Reagan’s former Chief of Staff, James Baker, supports ratifying the LOTS. Just as with any other resource development project, there is a royalty schedule: no royalty payments of any kind for the first five years of resource development and after five years the royalties cap at 7%. Right now, Russia, China and 161 other countries are eligible to exploit global resources, enrich their nations, fill the ISA coffers with royalties, and then direct ISA expenditures around the world. Once the U.S. ratifies the treaty, we would be granted 100% veto power as to how all ISA resources from all countries are allocated. That is why Condoleezza Rice endorses the treaty – the U.S. pays up to 7% for just our country, but we get veto power over 100% of the ISA coffers for every royalty from every country. That means zero global mineral and oil wealth payments from anywhere in the world going to rouge states. The only way the U.S. can accomplish this is by ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty and taking our seat at the ISA.