US within its rights according to international law to develop on extended continental shelf

Proponents of UNCLOS offer no evidence that any foreign nation has not recognized or will not recognize the unilateral proclamations made by the United States. yet the same proponents contend that the United States cannot hope to gain recognition of its ECS or assert jurisdiction and control over it unless and until it joins the convention. Law of the sea experts such as Ted McDorman at the University of Victoria disagree with that position:

It can be asked whether a non- party to the LOS Convention can legally exercise jurisdiction over its adjacent continental margin beyond 200 nautical miles or whether this entitlement is only available to parties to the LOS Convention. The answer is that there appears to exist sufficient state practice ... to support the view that, as a matter of customary international law, states can legally exercise jurisdiction over the continental margin beyond 200 nautical miles irrespective of the State’s status as a LOS Convention ratifier.11

No evidence suggests that mem- bership in UNCLOS is necessary, much less essential, either to gain international recognition of the U.S.’s ECS boundaries or to claim, legally and legitimately, jurisdiction and control over its ECS resources. It is telling that proponents of U.S. accession to UNCLOS do not claim that international recognition of the U.S. territorial sea, contiguous zone, or EEZ is contingent upon U.S. accession to the convention, yet they assert that accession is the sine qua non for international recognition of the U.S. ECS.12