Revision of U.S. ratification of UNCLOS key to a number of maritime industries from Sat, 11/11/2017 - 17:13
Without the universally recognized legal regime governing the exploitation of the mineral resources of the deep-sea beyond the zones of national jurisdictions that UNCLOS provides, US companies will not assume the investment rights associated with such projects until it was clear who had “clear legal title” to the resources extracted.
- Offshore oil and gas development dependent on legal protection of UNCLOS
- U.S. ratification of UNCLOS key to development of deep seabed mining industry
- Success of offshore wind power industry depends on U.S. ratification of UNCLOS
- Marine biotechnology industry would benefit from UNCLOS legal regime
- U.S. underseas cable industry needs UNCLOS protection
- U.S. ratification of UNCLOS is key to sustaining competitiveness of U.S. shipping industry
- Other states will challenge U.S. unilateral claims outside UNCLOS
Quicktabs: Arguments
In June of 2012, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held an array of hearings on UNCLOS to drum up congressional support for the Convention’s ratification. Senator John Kerry lead the charge and invited key players from the oil and gas, telecommunications, offshore mining, manufacturing, shipping, environmental, and tourism industries. Their argument was straightforward: without a universally recognized legal regime governing the exploitation of the mineral resources of the deep-sea beyond the zones of national jurisdictions, US companies would not assume the investment rights associated with such projects until it was clear who had “clear legal title” to the resources extracted. Uniformly, these industry leaders testified that accession to UNCLOS would provide such clarity, which would subsequently create jobs, protect the environment, and ultimately lead to a stronger US economy.
Ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention also has an important bearing on a longer-term potential energy source that has been the subject of much research and investigation at the U.S. Department of Energy for several years: gas hydrates.
Gas hydrates are ice-like crystalline structures of water that form “cages” that trap low molecular weight gas molecules, especially methane, and have recently attracted international attention from government and scientific communities. World hydrate deposits are estimated to total more than twice the world reserves of all oil, natural gas and coal deposits combined.
Methane hydrates have been located in vast quantities around the world in continental slope deposits and permafrost. They are believed to exist beyond the EEZ. If the hydrates could be economically recovered, they represent an enormous potential energy resource. In the U.S. offshore, hydrates have been identified in Alaska, all along the West Coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in some areas along the East Coast. The technology does not now exist to extract methane hydrates on a commercial scale. Joint industry/government groups of scientists have been at work in the Gulf of Mexico examining the hydrate potential in several deepwater canyons. This work is intended to help companies find and analyze hydrates seismically and to complete an area-wide profile of hydrate deposits.
From an economic perspective, the United States emerges a clear winner under the convention’s provisions on the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the continental shelf, due to its lengthy coastline and island possessions that border on several particularly productive ocean areas such as the Bering Sea. The United States has the largest and richest EEZ in the world. Also, our extended continental shelf has enormous potential due to oil and gas reserves, particularly in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas west and north of Alaska.
Discoveries by the crew aboard the USCG icebreaker Healy reveal that the U.S. continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean is much more extensive than originally thought. Nevertheless, only by becoming party to the convention and participating in its processes can the United States obtain secure title to these vast resources, adding an area twice the size of the Louisiana Purchase (some 290,000 square miles) for U.S. sovereign resource exploitation.5Climate Right for U.S. Joining Law of Sea Convention — Scott G. Borgerson and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering. — Council on Foreign Relations — Dec 23, 2009 [ More ]
Despite claims from critics of the convention that the United States could and should develop its continental shelf resources beyond 200 miles without becoming a party to UNCLOS, it stands to reason that any oil, gas, or mining company would want the legal certainty of the convention before investing billions of dollars to develop an offshore feld, no matter how rich it might be.6To Rule the Arctic’s Waves, U.S. Can’t Waive the Rules — Editorial. — Business Week — Oct 05, 2011 [ More ] In addition, the convention’s deep seabed mining provisions, as amended in 1994, would permit and encourage American businesses to pursue free-market-oriented approaches to deep ocean mining, including in the Arctic Ocean.