Revision of U.S. has resolved the ambiguity in military activities exemption clause from Wed, 08/20/2014 - 11:25
The United States, as authorized by Article 298, would exempt “military activities” from compulsory dispute resolution. Under the Convention, a state party has the exclusive right to determine what constitutes a “military activity.” The U.S. declaration states:
The Government of the United States of America declares, in accordance with article 298(1), that it does not accept any of the procedures provided for in section 2 of Part XV (including, inter alia, the Seabed Disputes Chamber procedure referred to in article 287(2)) with respect to the categories of disputes set forth in sub-paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) of article 298(1). The United States further declares that its consent to accession to the Convention is conditioned upon the understanding that, under article 298(1)(b), each State Party has the exclusive right to determine whether its activities are or were ‘‘military activities’’ and that such determinations are not subject to review.
Quicktabs: Arguments
One particularly noteworthy issue is how the Advice and Consent Resolution treats the domestic enforceability of the Seabed Dispute Chamber's rulings. The text of the Convention explicitly provides for the domestic enforceability of Chamber decisions. According to Article 39 of Annex VI of the Convention, "decisions ofthe Chamber shall be enforceable in the territories of the States Parties in the same manner as judgments or orders of the highest court of the State Party in whose territory the enforcement is sought." Justice Stevens, who concurred with the majority in Medellin, cited Article 39 as an example of a treaty text that "necessarily incorporates international judgments into domestic law."85 Yet Article 39 is non-self-executing under the Senate's Advice and Consent Resolution, a position that is reinforced by another Resolution provision directed specifically at the decisions of this Chamber. This latter provision also calls for implementing legislation:
The United States declares, pursuant to [A]rticle 39 of Annex VI, that decisions of the Seabed Disputes Chamber shall be enforceable in the territory of the United States only in accordance with procedures established by implementing legislation and that such decisions shall be subject to such legal and factual review as is constitutionally required 86 and without precedential effect in any court of the United States.
Were an effort made to enforce a decision of the Seabed Disputes Chamber in U.S. court prior to implementing legislation, would the "clear" text of Article 39, which Justice Stevens believed points to its self-executing status, prevail? Or would a court defer to the Advice and Consent Resolution's call for implementing legislation? What obstacles might be posed by the "constitutionally required" reviews of Chamber decisions, to which the Resolution refers? U.S. courts regularly enforce the decisions of commercial arbitral tribunals, but in theory any international tribunal proceeding might lead to a result that presented constitutional due process problems and that hence could not be enforced in U.S. court.87 Those who dislike the prospect of domestic enforcement of Convention provisions also may, in light of Medellin, seek to add language to the Advice and Consent Resolution specifying that Chamber decisions do not create U.S. private rights or private causes of action. Thus, even if the "clear" language of the Convention text were to lead a court to conclude that Article 39 of Annex VI of the Convention was self-executing, such additional language in the Resolution might present another bar to the enforcement of chamber decisions in U.S. courts.
Furthermore, the United States has indicated that it may broadly construe the scope of the military activities exception. The U.S. State Department takes the position "that intelligence activities at sea are military activities for purposes of the U.S. dispute settlement exclusion under the Convention and thus the binding dispute settlement procedures would not apply to U.S. intelligence activities at sea."54 The Advice and Consent Resolution also includes an understanding providing that a U.S. military vessel's collection of "military survey data" is a "military activity."55 Hypothetical situations in which U.S. views concerning the scope of "military activities" might differ from the views of international judges or arbitrators are not difficult to imagine. For example, consider a case in which a coastal state challenged the collection in its EEZ of "military survey data" by a U.S. military vessel. Would an international tribunal accept the U.S. assertion that this data collection was a "military activity"? Or would the tribunal instead characterize a dispute over such data collection as one involving coastal state restrictions on the conduct of marine scientific research? Is military deployment of a listening or security device on a coastal state's continental shelf a "military activity" (likely the U.S. view), or would this deployment fall within the scope of the coastal state's control over installations on the continental shelf (under Article 60(1)(c) of the Convention)? The self- judging U.S. "military activities" condition in the Advice and Consent Resolution suggests that the United States desires to preserve its flexibility not to participate in certain third-party proceedings, and that the United States may well regard with great skepticism any attempt to proceed with a case that the United States deems to concern military activities. U.S. State Department and Department of Defense officials, along with military leaders, have stressed the importance ofthis "military activities" condition.
The issue of innocent passage is raised by the concept of the territorial sea.207 In interpreting Article 21 of UNCLOS, some countries have adopted the view that they may, with due notice, create regulations and laws that restrict innocent passage through their territorial sea.208 The greatest restriction in these liberal navigation rules on innocent passage for the United States is the demand for prior notification and permission for the passage of a U.S. war vessel.209 The Convention recognizes the right of passage through the territorial seas, allowing for overflight and navigational freedom of the high seas.210 Currently, the lenient navigation rules include the immutable legal right for ships and aircrafts to travel the international straits without coastal states' interference.211 However, some UNCLOS III members may propose to amend the concept of freedom of navigation to allow the exclusion of vessels.212 As a member of UNCLOS III, the United States would be able to block such negative amendments.213 Further, if it joined UNCLOS, the United States could potentially prevent or decrease "the backsliding" by states that have previously abandoned their excessive maritime claims, yet wish to reinstitute those claims given that the United States is currently not a member.
Despite the ambiguity in the language of UNCLOS and the divergence in interpretation of the text, there is some evidence that the Convention did not intend to broadly exclude peacetime military operations in the EEZ.58 For instance, the 1949 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Corfu Channel decision refers to the freedom of navigation of warships in peacetime as a ‘general and well-recognized principle.’59 The ICJ’s findings in the Corfu Channel case were influential in the development of the law of the sea in the UNCLOS conferences.60 This finding is crucial since the freedom of navigation is the foundation for military operations at sea.61 However, the Court’s decision did not specify the scope of the rights included in the freedom of navigation of warships. During UNCLOS III, the President of the Conference, Tommy T.B. Koh, commented on the question of military activities in the EEZ by stating in 1984:
The solution in the Convention text is very complicated. Nowhere is it clearly stated whether a third state may or may not conduct military activities in the exclusive economic zone of a coastal state. But, it was the general understanding that the text we negotiated and agreed upon would permit such activities to be conducted. I therefore would disagree with the statement made in Montego Bay by Brazil, in December 1982, that a third state may not conduct military activities in Brazil’s exclusive economic zone[...].62
Unfortunately, the issue of military activities in the EEZ remains ambiguous and unsettled.
A number of States, in ratifying the Convention, have chosen to declare that they do not accept procedures for disputes concerning military activities. As of October 16, 2001, those States include Cape Verde, Chile, France, It- aly, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Tunisia."258 Others, such as India, Pakistan and The United Kingdom, have reserved judgment, per- haps waiting to make a declaration if and when the issue presents itself.259
Given the language of Article 298, and the concomitant proclivity on the part of maritime nations---especially the United States, which is not yet even a party to the Convention-to treat their naval vessels as sovereign entities ex- empt from the normal obligations of commercial vessels plying the seas, it is highly probable that these maritime nations would invoke Article 298 in every case.260 Thus, when disputes arise regarding the military activities of a flag State in the EEZ of a coastal State, it is extraordinarily unlikely that the flag state would submit to the dispute resolution mechanisms of the Convention.
Criticisms that the United States should not commit to provisions in the 1982 Convention to the effect that the high seas are “reserved” for peaceful purposes and that parties to the treaty shall refrain from “any threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” without noting that these obligations simply parallel the obligation in the United Nations Charter, already binding on the United States and every other nation in the world banning the aggressive use of force. These obligations, as those in the United Nations Charter, do not in any way inhibit either the right of individual or collective defense or otherwise lawful military activities. If these provisions did in any way inhibit such activities in the world’s oceans there would have been no agreement on the Convention. This is abundantly evident in the robust naval activity of nations for which the Convention has been in force;