However, in reviewing its 320 articles I can understand Mr. Gaffney’s position that nations would interpret the treaty against the U.S. Navy. For every Great Britain and Poland, which might hold one of 36 Council seats, I can name a Mozambique, Syria, Iran or Burma struggling through a new Dark Age where we are perceived as an economic predator and/or regime threat. We should not look to our friends either when Donald Rumsfeld, Tommy Franks, and George Tenet are considered war criminals in Germany, Canada, and Belgium. The Security Council is cut out of the loop, so the veto we needed during the Cold War is not available for the issues found within the treaty.
One of the many problems for interpretation could be Article 19 defining innocent passage, while within the territorial sea. Acts prejudicial to peace of a coastal state include launching and landing aircraft. Also a self-interested reading of the article says using any electronic device other than navigational radar could be considered an act of propaganda or an act aimed at collecting information. State Department may assure friendly government relations, but how many nations can provide practical sea, air and undersea supremacy guarantees to allow warships to forgo defensive measures provided by aircraft, boats, sonar, radars and comm. nets? Supposedly, the “military activities exemption” would allow you to maintain adequate ship or task force defenses in territorial waters. However, I do not see the “military activities exemption” as one of the articles. A hostile Council should have no problem defining this term to place our ships at risk of terrorism. In the article unavailable online, Dr. Scott C. Truver contends the Convention does not permit an international tribunal to frustrate Navy operations, but without reference to the treaty, he assures us some undefined protocol can (not will) exclude military activities from resolution provisions.
In reading this treaty, I believe you will find the extensive latitude in article language necessary to allow a hostile U.N. Council to write an enormous body of implementing regulations directed against our ships and planes. Our sailors will be bound by these regulations as they go into a “harms way” largely undefined in this era of violent peace. When something goes wrong the operators on 285 commissioned ships will pay the price, while 290 plus flag officers, their Pentagon lawyers, and politicians in Washington D.C. will express profound sorrow and outrage as all bullet proof their resumes. Bureaucracy infections set in as soon as one escapes small arms range, and becomes so all-consuming the plight of a Marine unit in Haditha now elicits unmitigated wrath half a world away.
Link to the treaty: http://www.globelaw.com/LawSea/lsconts.htm
Maybe the Navy was told to support it.
I would like to see what retired admirals think of it.
Its really simple, the Navy doesn't want Gunboat Diplomacy.
ping
In general, signing anything the UN writes is bad for our own national security.