The 1994 Agreement explicitly dealt with and resolved concerns U.S. had with ratifying UNCLOS
In 1994, the U.S. and other developed nations lobbied and won a number of significant concessions and amendments to UNCLOS that addressed the concerns that previous administrations had with the treaty, including provisions over tech transfer and resource sharing.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Myth: President Reagan thought the treaty was irremediably defective.
Reality: As explained above, President Reagan identified only certain deep seabed mining provisions of the Convention as flawed. His 1983 Ocean Policy Statement demonstrates that he embraced the non-deep-seabed provisions and established them as19 official U.S. policy. The 1994 Agreement overcomes each of the objections to the deep seabed mining provisions identified by President Reagan. As President Reagan’s Secretary of State, George P. Shultz, noted in his recent letter to Senator Lugar, “It surprises me to learn that opponents of the treaty are invoking President Reagan’s name, arguing that he would have opposed ratification despite having succeeded on the deep sea-bed issue. During his administration, with full clearance and support from President Reagan, we made it very clear that we would support ratification if our position on the sea-bed issue were accepted."
The changes set forth in the 1994 Agreement meet our goal of guaranteed access by U.S. industry to deep seabed minerals on the basis of reasonable terms and conditions. The Agreement overhauls the decision making procedures of Part XI to accord the United States, and others with major economic interests at stake, decisive influence over future decisions on possible deep seabed mining. The United States is guaranteed a seat on the critical decision-making body; no substantive obligation can be imposed on the United States, and no amendment can be adopted, without its consent.
The Agreement restructures the deep seabed mining regime along free-market principles. It scales back the structure of the organization to administer the mining regime and links the activation and operation of institutions to the actual development of concrete interest in seabed mining. The International Seabed Authority has no regulatory role other than administering the mining regime, and no ability to levy taxes.
A future decision, which the United States and other investors could block, is required before the organization's potential operating arm (the Enterprise) may be activated, and any activities on its part are subject to the same Convention requirements as other commercial enterprises. States have no obligation to finance the Enterprise, and subsidies inconsistent with GATT/WTO are prohibited. Of particular importance, the Agreement eliminates all requirements for mandatory transfer of technology and production controls that were contained in the original version of Part XI.
Ken Adelman, an active member of the Reagan Administration’s efforts to persuade allies that they should not support the Convention in 1982, now supports ratification, explaining that the changes made through the Part XI Agreement have responded properly to the concerns they had raised in the early 1980s:
Scraped away are virtually all the barnacles we denounced during our 1982 ‘‘scuttle diplomacy.’’ There’s no bar to private firms mining the minerals. No mandatory technology transfer. No decision-making without U.S. participation. Indeed, the U.S. gets a permanent seat on the decision-making body, and thus has veto power. There’s no bar to future qualified mining firms, and no gigantic LOS institution for wannabe bureaucrats.
The seabed mining regime reflects free-market principles. It offers compa- nies the legal certainty needed for large-scale, long-term investments; protects existing claims of U.S. firms; and reinforces international law on territorial waterways. It locks in U.S. offshore economic rights as it expands our rights over resources in a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, 200-mile continental shelf, and in a shelf beyond 200 miles off Alaska.