Convention principles of freedom of navigation,likely to be abrogated by nations when it is in their best interest and many already have

However, when countries perceive their vital national interests to be at stake—Great Britain in World War I and Iran during its war with Iraq in the 1980s, for instance—they rarely allow juridical niceties to stop them from interdicting or destroying international commerce. In a crisis, most maritime nations are ready to sacrifice abstract legal norms in pursuit of important policy goals. Indeed, LOST membership has not pre- vented Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, North Korea, Pakistan, and others from making ocean claims deemed by others to be exces- sive—and, thus, illegitimate—under the treaty. In testimony last October, Admiral Mullen warned that the benefits he believed were derived from treaty ratification did not “sug- gest that countries’ attempts to restrict navigation will cease once the United States becomes a party to the Law of the Sea Convention.”55