U.S. ability to conduct maritime interdiction operations would be curtailed by UNCLOS
If the United States ratifies the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the legality of maritime interdiction operations whether to stop terrorist attacks or prevent nuclear proliferation will, depending on the circumstances, be left to the decision of one of two international tribunals.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England maintain that the convention will enhance U.S. security. They argued in the Washington Times last monthReap the bounty — John D. Negroponte and Gordon England. — Washington Times — Jun 12, 2007 [ More ] that to meet the "complex array of global and transnational security challenges," the United States must have "unimpeded maritime mobility -- the ability of our forces to respond any time, anywhere, if so required."
This is true, but ratifying the convention won't bring this benefit. Instead it would put America's naval counterterrorism efforts under the control of foreign judges. Suppose the United States seizes a vessel it suspects of shipping dual-use items that might be utilized to build weapons of mass destruction or other tools of terrorism. It's not a wild supposition. Under the Proliferation Security Initiative, the United States has since 2003 secured proliferation-related high-seas interdiction agreements with countries such as Belize and Panama, which provide registration for much international shipping. If the United States ratifies the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the legality of such seizures will, depending on the circumstances, be left to the decision of one of two international tribunals.
The first is the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, based in Hamburg. Some members of the Hamburg tribunal come from countries naturally suspicious of American power, such as China and Russia. Others are not allied with the United States. Even judges from Europe and South America do not always see things the way U.S. military authorities do.
The second institution is a five-person international arbitration panel. The United States and the flag state of the seized ship would have input into the selection of some of these arbitrators. But the U.N. secretary general or the president of the Hamburg tribunal would select the crucial fifth arbitrator when, as would typically be the case, the state parties cannot agree. They must choose from a list of "experts" to which every state party to the convention -- not just China and Russia but other unfriendly nations such as Cuba and Burma -- can contribute.
UNCLOS III provides that, if a ship or its crew are seized on the high seas, the flag state can appeal to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg, Germany, for a prompt decision on the legality of the seizure.3 The treaty allows states to opt for other forms of arbitration on other disputes, but other forms of arbitration require all nations involved to agree on a specific panel of arbitrators. The only important category of dispute where one party can force another to answer before ITLOS is when a ship has been detained on the high seas and the complaining party seeks its immediate release.
Seizing a ship on the high seas without the consent of its home government would inevitably trigger a diplomatic confrontation. But in the right circumstances, the United States or its allies might feel obliged to act first and try to handle the diplomatic protests later. If intelligence gives reasonably firm indications of an imminent terror attack to be launched from a particular ship, the U.S. could insist on intervening, claiming a right of self-defense that supersedes the general “rules of the road” at sea. Alternatively, the United States might claim that a ship operated by terrorists was so closely analogous to a pirate ship that intervention could be justified under the UNCLOS exemption for piracy. In still another variant, the United States might interpret a bilateral agreement with the flag state as covering a particular intervention, while the flag state insisted on a different interpretation. In any of these cases, the flag state would likely sit on the sidelines while the ship’s operators pursued a claim on their own initiative, “on behalf of the flag State,” as UNCLOS allows.4 It is easy to imagine situations in which U.S. intervention might trigger a complaint to ITLOS. It is hard to imagine situations in which ITLOS would be other than a complicating factor in ensuing U.S. diplomacy toward the flag state.
Similarly, counter-proliferation efforts at sea are hindered by UNCLOS Article 92, which provides that “ships sail under the flag of one state only and, save in exceptional cases expressly provided for in international treaties or in this Convention, shall be subject to its exclusive jurisdiction on the high seas.” That means that a warship must have the consent of the flag state or the master to board and search a foreign flag vessel encountered seaward of the territorial sea of another nation. The enforcement regime established in both UNSCRs 1718 (2006) and 1874 (2009), which ban most arms transfers to and from North Korea, is based on exclusive flag state jurisdiction. Although UNSCR 1874 contains an enhanced maritime cargo inspection regime, it is still dependent on flag state consent (Operative Paragraph 12). UNSCRs 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2006) and 1803 (2008), which impose a similar ban on material related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, are likewise based on flag state jurisdiction. Interdiction efforts on the high seas under other non-proliferation initiatives, like the 2005 Protocol to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA)19 adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)20 announced by President Bush in March 2003 to combat the growing threat of WMD proliferation, also suffer from the same weakness – they are based on flag state consent. It is highly unlikely that Iran or North Korea will give consent to a foreign warship to board one of its vessels at sea. In short, in could be argued that UNCLOS allows North Korea and Iran to transport WMD-related materials with impunity, hiding behind the concept of exclu- sive flag state jurisdiction on the high seas.
Far from treating such seizures as remote hypotheticals, the Bush administration has invested considerable effort in a "Proliferation Security Initiative" (PSI) under which the United States has signed agreements with states that provide flags for most of the world's commercial shipping. These agreements may strengthen U.S. claims to intercept suspicious ships on the high seas, when flying with markings from the most common flagging states (such as Belize, Panama, and Libya, which have all signed such agreements). But the PSI agreements do not make clear when or whether ships or crews may be subject to long-term detention, and all the agreements stipulate that they do not supersede accepted standards of international law.
If we ratify the Law of the Sea treaty, even a PSI agreement with the flag state won't necessarily keep a dispute about the seizure from winding up before the Law of the Sea tribunal in Hamburg. That tribunal has asserted its right to hear claims for "prompt release" when filed by owners or operators of a ship, even when the nominal flag state takes no role in the proceedings. In past cases, ITLOS has ruled that ships cannot be detained, even when claimants refuse to supply full information about how the ship was acquired and on whose behalf. So while we have jealously reserved the right to detain terror suspects captured on land, we will, if we ratify this treaty, give up our right to decide when we can hold terror suspects seized at sea.
Take the question of suspects captured in Afghanistan--and the few captured elsewhere who have been brought to Guantánamo. Are they prisoners of war, covered by the 1949 Geneva Convention on this subject? The U.S. position is that such unlawful combatants--those who do not fall within the categories set out in the convention--are neither legitimate prisoners of war nor need they be treated as criminal suspects, who (according to international human rights conventions) must be either prosecuted or released.
The Bush administration has sought, in various ways, to mollify critics of its detention policy. Congress and the Supreme Court have insisted on certain legal safeguards and may ultimately demand more. But would we like the matter to be settled for us, all at once, by an international tribunal?
That is exactly what the Law of the Sea treaty would do: If we seize and detain a foreign ship and/or its crew, we must arrange some form of international arbitration within 10 days or the Law of the Sea tribunal will have jurisdiction to hear appeals for "prompt release." It has heard about one case a year in this category, since it got organized in the late 1990s and has never encountered a case in which it regarded further detention as justified. So, if we commit to this treaty, we will commit to having ITLOS review any seizures made at sea.
PSI is not compatible with LOST, despite proponents’ claims to the contrary. As a treaty, LOST is binding international law on the parties, whereas PSI is only an informal arrangement between certain nations, and carries no force as international law. The argument that PSI can be executed within the rules of LOST, even though LOST clearly prohibits boarding actions critical to PSI, ignores the fact that LOST outranks PSI in the hierarchy of international law.
As a result, unless one or more of the Treaty-approved circumstances for an at-sea intercept applies, LOST member states could be precluded from participating in such an action – even when there might be compelling evidence that nuclear or other WMD or their delivery systems were on board. As long as the United States continues not to be a LOST state party, it can always act unilaterally. That option, however, will be foreclosed, and our security possibly endangered as a result, if the Senate consents to the Treaty’s ratification.
In this connection, it must be noted that the Chinese and Russians have strenuously objected to the Proliferation Security Initiative, claiming that it violates LOST. They can be expected to seek mandatory dispute resolution of the matter should the United States become a state party. Should the ruling go against us, a critical tool in the nation’s effort to prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their delivery systems could be lost for good.
The United States should take the lead in developing new practices on the oceans that will at once facilitate commerce and peacetime deployment of warships but also protect our shores from the terrorist scourge. The President’s Proliferation Security Initiative is an example of such modern and creative thinking. This US-led multinational program of high seas interdiction and vessel boarding is barred by the Law of the Sea Treaty yet it is our overriding national security interest to execute. Ratification of the Treaty would effectively gut our ability to intercept the vessels of terrorists or hostile foreign governments even if they were transporting nuclear weapons. We must ensure that we not binding the government of the United States to a legal regime that makes us more vulnerable and trades the lives of our innocent citizens for the sake of participating in yet another unnecessary Treaty.