Originally published on the CGS blog on June 25, 2009.
Yesterday Pew Charitable Trusts ran this ad in the Washington Post and Politico, showing once again that the Law of the Sea convention has the largerst, broadest, extremely odd-bedfellow group of supporters of any issue moving forward inside the Beltway. Where else can you see the American Petroleum Institute and the World Wildlife Fund sandwiching the likes of former Secretary of State Jim Baker, Lee Hamiliton, John Warner, the US Chamber of Commerce, Verizon, not to mention GlobalSolutions.org.
The ad gets right to the point: our security can’t wait. Neither can our economy or our environment. It’s great to see supporters coming together to speed ratification along. Pew is doing a great service and should be commended. In addition their new site, RatifyLawOfTheSea.org is an excellent resource.
However, we are still waiting on word back from President Obama. As I have said before, the Senate is not likely to adopt any major treaty without presidential leadership in raising the issue and pushing it to the floor.
President Obama, the ball’s in your court.
Don Kraus
