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18 May 2007
Law of Sea Convention Serves U.S. Interests, Bush Says
Establishes a legal order for oceans, promotes international communication
Washington -- President Bush has urged the Senate to approve U.S. participation in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea "to advance U.S. interests in the world's oceans."
To date, 153 parties have signed on to the convention, which entered into force in 1994. The convention aims to promote international communication, foster peaceful use and conservation of ocean resources and preserve the marine environment.
"Joining [the convention] will serve the national security interests of the United States," President Bush said in a May 15 statement, and "promote U.S. interests in the environmental health of the oceans and ... give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted."
The comprehensive document covers nearly every aspect of the use of the ocean and its seabed, said Margaret Hayes, director of the State Department Office of Oceans Affairs in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
"It sets out jurisdictional areas, limits on them and rules about their use -- for example, that a territorial sea can't be more than 12 miles [19.3 kilometers] from a country's shores," Hayes said in a May 17 USINFO interview. "And there are provisions on high-seas freedoms that are necessary to every nation's security. The convention also allows a country to claim a 200-mile [322-kilometer] exclusive economic zone where the coastal state can exercise sovereign rights over resources found there."
The treaty also addresses passage of ships, international navigation, the rights of archipelagic states, the continental shelf, marine life conservation and management, resource development, scientific research, a binding procedure for dispute settlement and more.
A CONSTITUTION FOR THE OCEANS
The law of the sea was a doctrine developed in the 17th century to limit coastal state rights and jurisdiction over the oceans to a narrow belt of sea surrounding a nation's coastline.
The rest of the sea was free to all until the mid-20th century forward, when a range of issues -- fishing, pollution, military use, mineral rights -- made treaties necessary to restore order and promote better management of ocean resources.
By 1958, the first U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea in Geneva had produced four treaties that addressed the territorial sea, the continental shelf, the high seas, and fishing and conserving living resources on the high seas. There was also an optional protocol that addressed the compulsory settlement of disputes.
The United States signed all but the resolution-dispute treaty, Hayes said, but continued throughout the 1970s and early 1980s to seek a more comprehensive agreement -- what Tommy Koh of Singapore, president of the Third U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea, called in 1967 "a constitution for the oceans."
The convention was completed in 1982. The United States accepted all the provisions except Part XI, which addressed deep-sea mining for minerals and established the International Seabed Authority to authorize and regulate seabed exploration and mining.
The United States objected to the provisions because it and others with major economic interests at stake did not have adequate influence over future decisions, Hayes said. Then-President Ronald Reagan declined to sign the convention but in 1983 issued an Oceans Policy Statement that said the United States accepted, and would act in accordance with, all the provisions except those in Part XI.
By 1994, when the convention came into force, Hayes said, participating nations had made changes to Part XI that made the provisions acceptable to the United States and other countries, but the U.S. Senate has not yet approved the convention.
In response to Bush's statement, Hayes said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to schedule hearings on the convention over the next few months, and the administration hopes the full Senate will act on the convention as a priority this year.
More information about the Law of the Sea is available on the U.N. Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
