Bush Administration urges Senate approval of Law of Sea treaty

Bush Administration urges Senate approval of Law of Sea treaty    The Bush administration, in testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, has urged ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Sea (CLOS).
   “The U.S. is already a party to four 1958 conventions regarding various aspects of the law of the sea,” John F. Turner, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, told the Senate panel Tuesday.
   “Those conventions left some unfinished business … they did not set forth the outer limit of the territorial sea, and they did not contain a dispute settlement mechanism that the U.S. could use to push back illegal maritime claims of other countries,” Turner said.
   “When the Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982, the U.S. recognized that its provisions were favorable to U.S. interests, except for Part XI on deep seabed mining. In 1983, President Reagan instructed the government to abide by all the provisions other than those in Part XI,” Turner explained.
   “Part XI has now been fixed,” Turner said. “The agreement restructures the deep seabed mining regime along free-market principles. The U.S. is guaranteed a seat on the critical decision-making body; no substantive obligation can be imposed on the U.S. and no amendment can be adopted, without its consent.”
   The convention provides “for a territorial sea of a maximum breadth of 12 nautical miles,” and also establishes “a contiguous zone of up to 24 nautical miles from coastal baselines in which the coastal state may exercise limited control to prevent or punish infringements of its customs, fiscal, immigration and sanitary laws,” Turner told the Senate panel.
   In other testimony, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the convention was largely consistent with current U.S. law, including fisheries conservation and management.
   Paul Kelly, senior vice president, Rowan Cos., said the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy strongly supported U.S. ratification of the Convention.
   Frank Gaffney Jr., president and chief executive officer of The Center for Security Policy, expressed concern about the erosion of U.S. sovereignty if the convention were ratified.