The Law of the Sea is about land use control. LOST will be used to justify new land use regulations "to protect the marine environment." It isn't hard to see. Many oceanic species breed in estuaries within the United States. Estuarine health isn't doing very well for a number of reasons (many of which politicized science will conveniently miss). The estuaries are fed by rivers. The rivers are lined with cities.
Marine sanctuaries and global biospheres have already been used for this precise purpose and are effectively the model for what is planned for LOST. If all we accomplish is to alter the treaty to gain protection for our military or access to seabed mining we have anyway, we will have missed the point.
LOST has the potential to be a straitjacket, fully capable of crippling this nation economically (which certainly affects its ability to defend itself). According to the email I get from ALRA, the White House (particularly Dick Cheney) and Chuck Hagel have been the instigators in trying to push this treaty through in the dark of night after the Reagan Administration had rejected it out of hand.
This News Max of the left site presents another side to that as well. Both look like half truths and a waste of time.
Myth: President Reagan was opposed to UNCLOS.I really want no part of this thread.Fact: All of President Reagan’s objections to UNCLOS have been addressed. In 1983, President Reagan said that the treaty strongly supported U.S. interests except for one section, which dealt with deep seabed mining. With this in mind, President Reagan directed U.S. agencies to comply with the entire treaty except the part dealing with deep seabed mining. In his Statement on Oceans Policy, he said that the Convention “contains provisions with respect to traditional uses of the oceans which generally confirm existing maritime law and practice and fairly balance the interests of all states.”
Reagan further declared, “First, the United States is prepared to accept and act in accordance with the balance of interests relating to traditional uses of the oceans -- such as navigation and overflight. In this respect, the United States will recognize the rights of other states in the waters off their coasts, as reflected in the Convention, so long as the rights and freedoms of the United States and others under international law are recognized by such coastal states.
“Second, the United States will exercise and assert its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms on a worldwide basis in a manner that is consistent with the balance of interests reflected in the convention. The United States will not, however, acquiesce in unilateral acts of other states designed to restrict the rights and freedoms of the international community in navigation and overflight and other related high seas uses.
“Third, I am proclaiming today an Exclusive Economic Zone in which the United States will exercise sovereign rights in living and nonliving resources within 200 nautical miles of its coast [as provided for in UNCLOS]. This will provide United States jurisdiction for mineral resources out to 200 nautical miles that are not on the continental shelf. Recently discovered deposits there could be an important future source of strategic minerals.”
In 1994, U.S. negotiators succeeded in amending the disputed provisions to reflect all of President’s Reagan’s concerns. All of the State Department’s living former Legal Advisors (representing both Democratic and Republican Administrations) signed a letter to that effect. The letter states: “[T]he Reagan Administration’s objection to the LOS Convention, as expressed in 1982 and 1983, was limited to the deep seabed mining regime. The 1994 Implementing Agreement…satisfactorily resolved that objection and has binding legal effect in its modification of the LOS Convention."