UNCLOS is not administered by the United Nations
The United Nations has virtually no role in management, implementation, or execution of this treaty. It remains in the convention’s title only because the treaty was initially negotiated at the United Nations. In addition, the only international organization UNCLOS creates (the International Seabed Authority) is no different from the hundreds of other international organizations the U.S. is already party to, including the U.S.- Canadian Fisheries Convention or the International Maritime Organization.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Myth 6: UNCLOS is an "UN treaty" and sui generis does not serve U.S. interests.
The Convention is not the United Nations; it simply was negotiated under UN auspices, as are many vital international agreements. Such UN treaties as the Anti-Corruption Convention and the Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings or the International Ship and Port Facility security Code negotiated under the aegis of the International Maritime Organization enhance, not threaten, U.S. security.
Myth: The convention would turn the oceans over to the United Nations.
This is completely and utterly false; not a drop of ocean water nor an ounce of oceans resources would be turned over to the United Nations. To the contrary, the convention disappointed extreme internationalists who believed in "blue helmet" solutions to oceans issues. It placed all coastal resources of the water column and the continental shelf under coastal nation, rather than international, jurisdiction. And it maintained and strengthened freedom of navigation on the world's oceans. These critical issues in the negotiation, by far the most important, hugely strengthened national sovereign rights. Even the ISA that the convention created is an independent international authority, supported by the United States, and is necessary to provide stability of property rights to deep seabed minerals owned by no other nation. Without such an authority providing exclusive property rights to seabed mine sites of the deep ocean floor, seabed mining, including that by U.S. interests, would never be realized. And remember that this body is limited to the mineral resources of the deep seabed beyond national jurisdiction that have yet to be mined, in contrast with the billions of dollars in fisheries, oil and gas production on the continental margins, all of which are under national jurisdiction.
Myth: The convention "is designed to place fishing rights, deep-sea mining, global pollution and more under the control of a new global bureaucracy ..." (13) This is so erroneous that it would he humorous were it not so insistently advanced by critics. The executive branch, which led U.S. negotiations on the convention and supports the Senate's advice and consent, would never have supported such nonsense. The ISA deals solely with mineral resources beyond national jurisdiction, not with fishing, global pollution or navigation, nor with activities in the water column. If U.S. mining firms are ever to mine the deep seabed, particularly sites under no nation's ownership, it is necessary to create enforceable rights to this end. The United States is already party to hundreds of specialized international organizations. The ISA would be an unremarkable addition, one that after 11 years of operation currently has a staff of 28.