US was the leader in negotiations over UNCLOS and won significant gains for US national security

I am also pleased to suggest that, contrary to the nay-sayers who said that we would never win on these issues, a tough United States’ position prevailed. Indeed, the United States prevailed on all of the security provisions of the Convention— security provisions which were very much at stake in the negotiations. We fully preserved navigational freedom, including transit passage through, over, and under international straits.4 We extended United States’ resource jurisdiction into the oceans in an area larger than the entire land mass of the United States, and we insisted on assured access to seabed minerals for United States’ firms.5 In short, the Law of the Sea Convention and its negotiation remains one of the seminal negotiating successes of the United States throughout its history. Moreover, the United States was not a bit player in all of this, nor was it an isolated participant. The United States was overwhelmingly the leader in this negotiation. This is in sharp contrast to what you may have seen in the negotiations for the Rome Treaty6 or for the Ottawa Treaty.7 This is one in which the United States led, and the United States won. There should be no mistake about that.