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Should the US ratify UNCLOS –Law of the Sea?
The US criticizes China for not adhering to a treaty that the US refuses to sign.
Yes
No
Other- Pls explain
Unsure
Overview - Convention & Related Agreements
Harvard National Security Journal ? Why the US Should Ratify UNCLOS: A View from the South and East China Seas
(Almost) Everyone Agrees: The U.S. Should Ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty - The Atlantic
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: Why the U.S. Hasn’t Ratified It and Where It Stands Today | Travaux: The Berkeley Journal of International Law Blog
The US criticizes China for not adhering to a treaty that the US refuses to sign.
Yes
No
Other- Pls explain
Unsure
Overview - Convention & Related Agreements
Harvard National Security Journal ? Why the US Should Ratify UNCLOS: A View from the South and East China Seas
III. UNCLOS in the South and East China Seas
One of the most important reasons for ratification, perhaps least discussed in popular media, is UNCLOS’ pivotal role in mediating territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Territorial disputes between China and its neighbors implicate most of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. Chief among them are contested claims to the Parcel Islands (Vietnam), Scarborough Shoals (Philippines), and widespread disagreement over the legitimacy of China’s claims to great swaths of the South China Sea through the 9-dash line. Moreover, there has been little progress in resolving these disputes through bilateral U.S. – China negotiations, including the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Scholars have cited UNCLOS as a potential mechanism for mitigating these issues in House Foreign Affairs Committee and Armed Services Subcommittee on Sea Power briefings, among others. Ratifying UNCLOS is essential to American regional interests for four reasons.
First, the U.S. has repeatedly emphasized that territorial disputes should be addressed multilaterally and has repudiated efforts, led by the Chinese, to address problems with individual Southeast Asian nations. As pointed out by the Center for New American Security, however, American arguments in favor of multilateralism are “robbed of moral authority” when the U.S. refuse to support the most comprehensive mechanism for multilateral resolution of maritime disputes. By not ratifying UNCLOS, American arguments regarding the region’s most complex issues are all too easily left open to rhetorical attack by those opposed to multilateralism. More importantly, it betrays a dangerous ambiguity about America’s commitment to opposing unilateral solutions.
(Almost) Everyone Agrees: The U.S. Should Ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty - The Atlantic
It is high time the United States joined 162 other states and the European Union in becoming party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)--thirty years after the Reagan administration first negotiated the treaty.
On May 23, the White House dispatched its big guns to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Senator Kerry is holding hearings on UNCLOS. The message from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, was unequivocal: Acceding to the treaty is profoundly in the U.S. national interest.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: Why the U.S. Hasn’t Ratified It and Where It Stands Today | Travaux: The Berkeley Journal of International Law Blog
Opposition to UNCLOS
Despite its popularity, some critics argue that UNCLOS is seriously flawed and would detract from U.S. interests by ceding sovereignty to international organizations and tribunals. They argue that UNCLOS is unnecessary since customary international law and other agreements already provide the legal bases for international maritime law. For instance, these agreements already grant Navy ships the freedom to navigate on the high seas and no state has or would attempt to block passage of a US vessel through their waters, both because of US naval supremacy and because they want reciprocal rights to sail through our seas. So ratifying the treaty would merely signal to other nations that the US can only secure its rights on the international stage by appealing to institutions favored by the rest of the world, thereby diminishing US sovereignty.
Critics also argue that the US should not bind itself to international bureaucracies, such as the International Seabed Authority (ISA) created by UNCLOS to regulate mining activities on the deep seabed beyond the jurisdiction of any country. These bureaucracies are often wasteful and hostile to US interests, and the ISA is particularly threatening since there is no veto for the U.S. Thus the ISA Assembly could potentially amend the treaty without the consent of the U.S.