U.S. failure to align ocean policy at the national level with UNCLOS results in ad hoc regulations that form trade barrier

A major source of tension between U.S. regulations and UNCLOS directives concerns the United States' imposition of unilateral trade sanctions against other states in order to enforce U.S. standards of operation. Such unilateral actions violate international law by directly interfering with a sovereign's exclusive right to regulate activities in its own territory.¹²⁷ A state may trigger U.S. trade sanctions if it fails to comply with U.S. domestic conservation standards, such as the MMPA¹²⁸ or the 1989 Sea Turtle Conservation Amendments to the ESA.¹²⁹ As discussed above, the imposition of trade sanctions under these laws depends upon whether a foreign state implements conservation or operating standards comparable to those adopted in the United States for protecting marine mammals and sea turtles."¹³⁰

The international community is hostile toward these laws because trade-sanction decisions are based solely on U.S. domestic environmental standards and contain no exceptions for internationally agreed upon standards.¹³¹ Additionally, "these statutes have been deemed protectionist by many nations because they serve to protect U.S. fishermen from foreign competition by equalizing costs associated with environmental protection."¹³²