While President Clinton had signed the convention in ’94, Senate ratification has been held off for over a decade by a small group of troglodyte senators, who irrationally object to all international treaties and have successfully manipulated Byzantine Senate rules to prevent a full Senate vote. Thus the U.S. remains a non-member of the convention, and lacks standing to participate in its management.
Until now, this senatorial inaction has had no serious consequences. That’s because U.S. negotiators had worked tirelessly to mold the original treaty language to embody our principles and protect our interests. Indeed, U.S. policy actually has conformed to UNCLOS provisions, ever since the Reagan Administration. However, since November 2004, member states of UNCLOS have had the right to modify the treaty. Furthermore, in recent years several important new UNCLOS policy issues have arisen which will require UNCLOS revision.
Until very recently it appeared that U.S. ratification of UNCLOS was in the cards for this coming spring: Accession to the treaty now enjoys wide support across the U.S. political spectrum n the Bush White House and our top military brass, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, maritime industry and energy development interests, the U.S. maritime fishery industry and virtually all of our mainstream environmental groups.
With also unanimous support by the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee it seemed certain that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would soon call for a full Senate vote on ratification, and that the result would be affirmative. However, during last fall UNCLOS treaty opponents, notably blogger Frank Gaffney and Oklahoma Senator Jim Imhoff, began again to raise the specter that this treaty (or any treaty) would encroach unacceptably on U.S. Sovereignty. This assertion is patently a red herring: All signatory nations are subject to the same rules and regulations, and all are better off as a result.
Furthermore, as Richard Lugar, former Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee chairman and now its ranking minority party member, has emphasized, “Opponents seem to think that if the U.S. declines to ratify the Law of the Sea, it will evaporate into the ocean mists…Unlike some treaties…where U.S. non-participation renders the treaty irrelevant or inoperable, the Law of the Sea will continue to form the basis of maritime law regardless of whether or not the U.S. is a party.”
Nevertheless, the reactionaries’ hatchet job is working once again, producing a flood of anti-signatory letters to every senator and frightening Republican presidential candidates into backing off from public support n even John McCain, who has been a strong supporter of UNCLOS for years.
So UNCLOS treaty ratification is in trouble again n not because informed senators are opposed, but only because some of them fear negative political consequences if they vote to ratify. This until, and unless, the broad coalition of treaty supporters wakes up, takes the threat seriously and lets the senators know.
Robert McKelvey is a professor emeritus at the University of Montana. In recent years he has been engaged in interdisciplinary research on the management of exploited marine ecosystems which are also impacted by oceanic climate change.
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