Originally published on the CGS blog on December 12, 2007.
In the last week, I’ve had over ten meetings with Senate staffers on the Law of the Sea Convention
(I hope this explains and excuses my recent absence from this blog). In
every meeting — without exception — staffers have agreed that U.S.
interests are served by ratification of the Convention. Yet, every
single staffer also added that they are being bombarded by calls from
right-wing activists who say that ratification would mean a loss of
sovereignty for the U.S.
These meetings were instructive for two reasons. First, it shows
that some senators are more than willing to put politics over
substance, which I think will come as little surprise to most readers.
Second, it shows how badly right-wing activists misunderstand both the
Law of the Sea Convention and the concept of sovereignty itself.
These activists misconstrue sovereignty as the notion that the U.S.
should be able to do what it wants, where it wants, however it wants.
And they reject the basic and legally indisputable premise that treaty
law is expressly recognized as the law of the land under the U.S.
Constitution.
Even the most traditional definition of sovereignty, the ability to
govern without external influence or meddling, would not be eroded with
ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention. In fact, it would be
enhanced. The U.S. would gain formal international recognition over its
claim of a 12-nautical mile territorial sea that would be subject to
U.S. laws, a huge, 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone that would
be subject to U.S. economic control, and exclusive economic rights in
an extended continental shelf beyond that 200-mile limit. The idea that
the U.S. would sacrifice control of waters beyond that point is
ludicrous, as neither the U.S. nor any other country has sovereign
rights in international waters.
The fact is that sovereignty is a two-way street. Other countries
now suspect that America refuses to ratify the Convention because it
does not respect their sovereignty. And you can bet that Indonesia, India and Malaysia,
critical players in regional maritime security, will make a better
effort to accommodate the navigational rights of the U.S. Navy when
they are sure that the U.S. respects other countries’ sovereign rights.
At some point I’ll go into greater detail on how absenting ourselves
from the treaty actually does threaten sovereignty, but not now. More
on that later.
Scott Paul
