Advancing the National Interests of the United States: Ratification of the Law of the Sea
The authors argue that ability of the United States to resolve "one of the world’s most important foreign policy and security challenges" -- the territorial disputes in the South China Seas -- depends on U.S. willingness to ratify the Law of the Sea.
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The credibility of the United States in the Asia Pacific is at stake on a decision whether to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). While there are other compelling arguments for ratification, none is as urgent as the requirement for the United States to solidify its commitment to the rule of international law, including in the Asia Pacific. This is particularly true in regard to one of the world’s most important foreign policy and security challenges: resolving disputes in the South China Sea.
This week, the Obama administration went all in on UNCLOS and sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of ratification. The ball is now in the Senate’s court.
A decision to anchor the United States in UNCLOS is one that cannot be delayed. The president has wisely refocused the country on Asia to advance U.S. interests, from economic recovery and growth to regional peace and security to developing new sources of innovation. Countries around the Asia Pacific are assessing whether the United States has the political will, the pocketbook, and the commitment to further institutionalize its presence in the region. UNCLOS ratification is necessary to answer those important questions in the affirmative.
The final, and currently most prominent, argument against ratification surrounds sovereignty. Opponents say that, by limiting itself to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and whatever extended continental shelf it can claim, the United States is restricting its jurisdictional sovereignty. What this argument misses, however, is that the United States’ continental shelf is the largest of any—up to 600 miles offshore in the Arctic alone. John Norton Moore of the University of Virginia School of Law has argued that ratification would “massively increase [U.S.] sovereign jurisdiction” by more than the size of the Louisiana Purchase and Alaska combined.
Much attention surrounding the Law of the Sea debate has focused on the Arctic. But the waters that best illustrate the need for an agreed-upon system of rules for the world’s oceans and a U.S. seat at the table are in the South China Sea, where a rising great power, China, decided to assert its maritime claims over smaller neighbors. It did so most aggressively when it submitted the infamous “9-dash line” claim to the United Nations in 2009. That claim has no basis in international law—a fact acknowledged by experts in China—and instead recalls an earlier era when the only rule of international relations was the prerogative of the mighty.
Beijing has walked back its assertive claims. But it did so not because of its ASEAN neighbors’ opposition to the “9-dash line” in May 2009. It did so only when Washington made clear—first with Secretary of State Clinton’s statements at the ASEAN Regional Forum in July 2010 and most recently with President Barack Obama’s appearance at the East Asia Summit last November—that preserving international maritime law, embodied in the Law of the Sea, is a vital U.S. national interest .Without accession, however, the U.S. position is considerably weakened by charges of hypocrisy, a fact not lost on Beijing and of real concern to China’s neighbors who rely on the United States.
Regarding the third concern, the taxation on resource extraction in exclusive economic zones amounts to just over 2 percent on average, a price that mining and hydrocarbon companies have signaled they are willing to pay as the world’s energy markets hunger for new resources and prices of commodities climb. As for revenue redistribution, opponents too often overlook the fact that following renegotiation of the Law of the Sea, the United States is guaranteed the only permanent veto on how funds are distributed. It is also exempt from any future amendments to the treaty without Senate approval. In other words, the United States would enjoy a position of unequaled privilege, not unfair treatment, within UNCLOS.
The United States need not take a position on the claims of parties in the South China Sea dispute or in any other dispute. It need only ensure that whatever resolutions are reached are within the bounds of international law. If China or any other party is permitted to simply ignore the rules of one facet of the international system—in this case the Law of the Sea—then the entire system loses legitimacy. Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Robert Papp said it best at the same May 9 forum: “Our legitimacy as a sovereign state and as a world leader…rests with the rule of law.”
The Senate should act to assert the national interests of the United States and ratify UNCLOS as soon as possible. Asserting U.S. credibility in the Asia Pacific and globally by standing by the rule of law is in our economic and security interests. In fact, U.S. ratification of UNCLOS will determine whether the twenty-first century resembles the relatively stable order of the late-twentieth century or is more like the competitive free-for-all of the nineteenth.