On balance, gains from freedom of navigation rights outweigh costs of UNCLOS

Freedom of navigation is the main reason why the George W. Bush administration announced its support for U.S. accession shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.³⁰ The administration likely finds that the Convention's navigational and national security benefits far outweigh any costs to the U.S. joining the Convention. Military security relates to self-defense, which the Convention pre- serves,³¹ and to port security, which the Convention facilitates by incorporating security requirements developed through the Inter- national Maritime Organization.³² The Convention also assures rights of navigation and overflight, including transit passage through strategic straits and archipelagic sea lanes passage,³³ as well as the immunity of warships.³⁴ The U.S. insisted on strengthening rights of navigation and overflight during the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea Conference (UNCLOS III), and in making them more objective with what appears in the 1958 Territorial Sea Convention.