One hundred and sixty-two countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — a treaty designed to provide international guidelines for use of the world’s oceans — but in the 30 years since it was first negotiated, the United States has refused, putting the country’s long-term national and economic security at risk.
That was the focus of a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week, which featured testimony from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
“When I was brand-new to the Senate,” Senator Coons said at the hearing, “one of the earlier meetings I took with was with the then outgoing Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead. And when I asked him, what is the single most important thing we can do to help the Navy over the next decade, he said, without hesitation, ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.”
Chris also addressed some of the resistance to the Convention’s passage, noting the debate is largely dated.
“I understand some of the concerns raised by members of this committee,” he said. “There were some flaws and some issues in this treaty when first negotiated in ’82. Many of them were hammered out, resolved by ’94, by amendments, certainly by the time this was previously considered several times by this committee during your service here, Senator, now Secretary.”
“I believe it is well past the time when the questions and concerns raised here today were compelling.”
Asked by Senator Coons about the potential risk assumed by the U.S. by refusing to ratify the Convention, General Dempsey said that the “failure to ratify puts us at some greater risk of conflict.”
Secretary Panetta also agreed that failure to ratify the Convention could pose an increased risk of confrontation.
“The risk is this,” Panetta explained. “If we face a situation that involves navigational rights, if we are not a party to this treaty and can’t deal with it at the table, then we have to deal with it at sea with our naval power. And once that happens, we clearly increase the risk of confrontation.”
Panetta added that so many U.S. allies have already signed on to the convention and they cannot understand why the U.S. has not yet ratified the convention.
“Sure, they know we are a strong naval power,” Panetta said. “They know that we can exert ourselves military wherever we want to. But they also know that, in today’s world, they are dealing at the table trying to negotiate resolutions to conflicts in a rules-based manner. That is the way to deal with issues like that.”
Finally, Chris asked Secretary Clinton how failing to ratify the convention would pose challenges to the State Department in their efforts to protect vital U.S. interests in the Arctic’s Northwest Passage.
Clinton noted that “one of the reasons there has been such strong bipartisan support coming from Alaska over the last decades is because they are truly on the front lines.”
“We know there are natural resources that are likely to be exploitable if we have the opportunity to do so,” Clinton said.
“Being able to demarcate our continental shelf and our extended continental shelf is seen in Alaska as a missed opportunity and a strategic disadvantage that is increasingly going to make us vulnerable as the waters and the weather warms,” Clinton said.
“There are going to be ships from all over the world exploring, exploiting, fishing, taking advantage of what rightly should be American sovereign territory.”
The United States is currently the only Arctic nation that has not ratified the convention.