U.S. has lost its leadership role and its credibility by non-adherence to UNCLOS and risks losing claims to valuable resources

MOORE: Now, let's look for a moment at some of the cost of non-adherence. Non-adherence on a treaty like that, by the way, rather extraordinary. Now, let's look at the cost of non-adherence. The United States has gone from THE leader in the world in oceans policy -- and make no mistake, we were the leader throughout this process -- to simply observer status. The United States has no member on the Continental Shelf Commission making the rules and regulations for the shelf. Not surprisingly, Russia chose basically to go to the commission when the United States was not on it. No wonder it was the first one to go to the commission in its Arctic claim. The United States does not participate in the international authority in making the rules and regulations for seabed mining. And if we don't join soon, we are at risk in losing all four of our mine sites, again, with the aggregate value of about 1 trillion (dollars) in cooper, nickel, cobalt and manganese. We've already lost one out of the four sites. Russia is out there with a site. India is with a site. China is with a site. Others are with a site. We're about ready to throw them away, because the United States is not adhering to the convention. In addition to that, the United States is achieving a delay in development on the Continental Shelf oil and gas, because we have no stable legal regime until we join and demarcate the outer area of the boundary. The United States is harmed in its PSI initiative when states such as Malaysia refuse to join with us, because they say we're not a member. The United States is harmed potentially in relation to what we negotiated in losing it simply as a result of others being able to amend the treaty. And if we are not a party, their amendments will then become binding on the treaty on everyone in the world. Whereas, rather interestingly, if we are a party, they cannot amend for us in a way that will be binding on the United States, and the original treated we negotiated would be the one that would be applying to us. In addition to that, we have difficulties with countries around the world that seek to harm United States' interests. Iran today, for example, says the U.S. has no right to go through Strait of Tehran in transit passage mode because we are, quote, "not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention."