Why the Law of the Sea is wrong for America
May 18, 2007| By Nathaniel Ward
A quarter century ago, international bureaucrats drafted the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Designed as a comprehensive legal regime to manage the seas, the treaty has been repeatedly rejected by American policymakers, most recently in 2004, because it would on balance harm America’s interests.
Now it has reared its ugly head again, and it’s no better than before. The treaty, explain Heritage scholars Edwin Meese, Baker Spring and Brett Schaefer, “poses the usual risks to U.S. interests of such multilateral treaties.” For example, it could subsume American interests within a vast, costly and unaccountable international bureaucracy.
Heritage’s Baker Spring outlined the dangers of the treaty in testimony before the House International Relations Committee the last time it was considered.
- Loss of sovereignty. Instead of being a treaty between sovereign nations, the treaty could submit America’s laws to unaccountable international “institutions with executive and judicial powers that in some instances are compulsory.”
- Unnecessary limitations on the exploitation of resources. Instead of allowing efficient and effective exploitation of sea resources using free enterprise mechanisms, the treaty is organized around outdated redistributionist economic schemes.
- A step in the direction of international taxing authority. One provision in the treaty “would for the first time allow a U.N.-affiliated international authority to impose a tax directly on the U.S. for economic activity.”
- Unnecessary risks to national security. The treaty could empower international tribunals to limit the Navy’s right to navigate international waters—rights already protected to a large extent by earlier treaties.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
