Law and the Oceans

Dissecting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Mar 30, 2007 Wesley Rouse

The oceans have had little law down through history. Now the United Nations is trying to bring some law and order with a new Convention on the Law of the Seas.

“The oceans are the very foundation of human life...” , so begins the explanation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. There are areas on the earth where for centuries no law has existed—the oceans. Who owns the minerals on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean? Who is responsible to police piracy in the Indian Ocean? Who has the right to claim ownership to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean? What happens when the common oceans are polluted thus endangering human life? These and a thousand other difficult issues are in question.

In the 1970s and early 80s, more than 150 countries, all a part of the United Nations, started work to change this situation. The policy treaty that they developed is called The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. It is a remarkable document of rules and regulations covering practically every aspect of law and order on the oceans and seas. It was presented as a complete document and was to be accepted completely without reservation by all the countries of the world. A basic thread running through the Convention is that the oceans have problems, these problems are interrelated, and the whole world must be involved before the problems can be solved. In November 1994, this Convention became United Nations law. The quandary facing the UN mandate is that not every country of the United Nations signed/ratified the agreement. Still awaiting ratification of the Convention is the United States. The US arguments against the treaty might be summarized into three points: (1) giving legal authority to a body not a part of the United States; (2) limiting the activities of the United States military; and (3) allowing outside-the-United States organizations to influence United States laws. These are important refutations, but how long can an influential country such as the United States refrain from participating in world ocean affairs?

What does the Convention hope to accomplish? Below are summarized the main points of the Convention.

• Clearly defining the line separating national and international waters (delineated as 12 nautical miles with 24 miles for policing powers).
• Delimiting areas of the ocean, especially straits less than the 12 mile limit, where international navigational passage and overflight rights would be enforced. The rights of land-locked States are extended to freedom of transport between States.
• Establishing a 200 mile off-shore limit, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), for a nation to exploit, research, manage, and protect all resources (examples: fisheries, oil and natural gas production, gravel and bottom deposits, and manganese nodule and other ocean floor mining); providing some participation for land-locked states in the surplus of the living resources of the same-region countries EEZs.
• Setting limits on the claims of nations over Continental Shelf resources to the 200 mile EEZ (some specific deviations were established). States with continental shelf borders including enclosed bodies of water must cooperate in managing the resources with other countries bordering the body of water.
• Making the deep seabed mining resources beyond the EEZ “the common heritage of mankind,” and countries profiting from mining the bottom of the ocean beyond the EEZ limit must share revenues with the entire international community.
• Providing a system of public/private and collective companies under the supervision of the UN be established to mine ocean minerals; all nations can navigate, overflight, perform scientific research, and fish on the high seas; and a system of cooperation between all states must be adopted leading to the management and conservation of living resources.
• Collaborating of all nations in protecting and preserving the marine environment including developing shared rules and regulations enforceable in all cooperating countries.
• Conducting research within EEZs with the obligated consent of the coastal State. This means that research “in normal circumstances” for peaceful intentions “shall not be delayed of denied unreasonably.” Furthermore, the resultant marine technology information must be shared with just regard for all States.
• Settling all disputes by peaceful means. A tribunal system will be established to impose compulsory submission in some cases and in all cases of disputes concerning deep seabed mining.

What about the future? The future holds many interesting challenges for the United Nations, but probably the most ambitious test is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Relinquishing sovereign state powers and sharing the results for the good of all mankind almost sounds like a religious statement, but this is the United Nations. The peoples of the earth have always had a problem sharing anything, and cooperative sharing has virtually never occurred. Therefore, the Convention experiment in cooperation of nations (as contrasted with cooperation between nations) presents an hypothesis with possible theoretical results that could lead to a peace such as the world has never known. If this Convention can be carried out in its fullest, it could turn out to be the most important piece of “legislation” of the 21st century, perhaps the last chance at saving “the very foundation of human life.”

The copyright of the article Law and the Oceans in Environmentalism is owned by Wesley Rouse. Permission to republish Law and the Oceans in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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