Outlaw of the Sea
The Senate Republicans' UNCLOS Blunder
Article Summary and Author Biography
Recently, a group of 34 legislators promised to vote against the UN Convention on the Law of The Seas, ensuring that the bill will not be ratified. Their move will make it harder for the United States to continue to build up a rules-based order in the South China Sea. It could also spell the end of treaties as a tool of U.S. national security policy.
THOMAS WRIGHT is a Fellow in the Managing Global Order Center at the Brookings Institution.
Snapshot
Until recently, Asian countries' competing claims in the seas around China did not cause outright conflict. But now that drilling technology can tap gas and oil beds there, Asia capitals are stepping up their games.
A Map of Conflicts in the South China Sea (Sam Pepple / Sample Cartography). Click to enlarge.
When U.S. Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), both vice presidential hopefuls, recently declared their opposition to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, they virtually guaranteed that it would be dead on arrival if it were sent to the Senate. A group of 34 senators, including Ayotte and Portman and led by Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), is now on the record promising to vote against UNCLOS, which is enough to make getting the two-thirds majority necessary for ratification impossible.
UNCLOS was first negotiated 30 years ago. But back then, U.S. President Ronald Reagan objected to it because, he argued, it would jeopardize U.S. national and business interests, most notably with respect to seabed mining. A major renegotiation in 1994 addressed his concerns, and the United States signed. Now, the U.S. Navy and business community are among UNCLOS' strongest supporters. So, too, was the George W. Bush administration, which tried to get the treaty ratified in 2007 but failed due to Republican opposition in the Senate...
