Revision of U.S. can make claim to Arctic resources without being party to UNCLOS from Tue, 04/15/2014 - 23:49
As it has done for quite a long time, the United States may rely on the doctrine of the freedom of the high seas codified in the 1958 Convention on the High Seas to assert that it is permitted to mine and navigate in the Arctic region.
Quicktabs: Arguments
LOST in the Arctic. The U.S. Arctic Region Pol- icy urges the Senate to approve U.S. accession to LOST. However, the U.S. can execute its Arctic policy without ratifying LOST.
At present, America is not bound by the treaty’s procedures and strictures, but the U.S. is pursuing its claims under international law as an indepen- dent, sovereign nation, relying on President Harry S. Truman’s Presidential Proclamation No. 2667, which declares that any hydrocarbon or other resources discovered beneath the U.S. continental shelf are the property of the United States.4 The U.S. has shown that it can successfully defend its rights and claims through bilateral negotiations and in multi- lateral venues, such as through the Arctic Ocean Conference, which met in Greenland in May 2008.
Is having a seat on the46 "U.S. Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea: Passive Acceptance Is Not Enough to Protect U.S. Property Interests ." North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation. Vol. 31, No. 3 (2005-2006): 745-792. [ More (7 quotes) ] CLCS an important enough reason to join the Convention? Would having a seat on the CLCS really put the United States Government in a position to have a say in deliberations over other nations’ extended continental shelf claims? Again, the answer to both of those questions is, “no.” The CLCS was established to help facilitate the implementation of Article 76. As a body of scientific experts, however, the CLCS does not have veto power over coastal state submissions. It may only make rec- ommendations to the coastal state on matters related to the establishment of the outer limits of its continental shelf. Coastal states may accept or reject these recommendations. Annex II (Article 8) to the Convention and CLCS Rules of Procedure (Rule 53) simply require the coastal state to make a revised or new submission in the case of disagreement with the recommen- dations of the Commission. Additionally, Annex II (Article 2) limits the membership of the CLCS to 21 experts, so there is no guarantee that a U.S. representative would be elected to the Commission even if the United States was a party to the Convention. Moreover, even if elected, the U.S. repre- sentative would serve in a personal capacity (Annex II, Article 2(1); CLCS Rules of Procedure (Rule 11)) and would be precluded from voting on any submission tendered by the United States (Annex II, Article 5; CLCS Rules of Procedure (Rule 42)). Having a seat at the table on the CLCS would not put the U.S. Government in a position to have a say in deliberations over other nations’ claims and would therefore have minimal benefit for the United States.
However, pursuant to long-standing law and policy the United States already enjoys and exercises full jurisdiction and control over its ECS. In addition to the 1945 Truman Proclamation, in which President Harry S. Truman declared that the United States “regards the natural resources of the subsoil and sea bed of the continental shelf beneath the high seas but contiguous to the coasts of the United States as appertaining to the United States, subject to its jurisdiction and control,” in 1953 Congress passed the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which defined the outer continental shelf as “all submerged lands lying seaward and outside of the area of lands beneath navigable waters...and of which the subsoil and seabed appertain to the United States and are subject to its jurisdiction and control.”
After the adoption of UNCLOS in 1982, the U.S. affirmed its jurisdiction over its entire continental shelf, including the ECS. Specifically, in November 1987 a U.S. government interagency group issued a policy statement declaring its intent to delimit the U.S. ECS in conformity with Article 76 of UNCLOS (which provides a formula for measuring the extent of a coastal state’s ECS). That statement read, in pertinent part, “The United States has exercised and shall continue to exercise jurisdiction over its continental shelf in accordance with and to the full extent permitted by international law as reflected in Article 76, paragraphs (1), (2) and (3).”