Like a ghost in the night this jellyfish drifts near the seafloor in Barkley Canyon, May 30, 2012, at a depth of 892 metres. Credit: CSSF/NEPTUNE Canada/cc by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 2015 (IPS)

After four days of intense negotiations – preceded by nine years of dilly-dallying – the United Nations has agreed to convene an intergovernmental conference aimed at drafting a legally binding treaty to conserve marine life and govern the mostly lawless high seas beyond national jurisdiction.

The final decision was taken in the wee hours of Saturday morning when the rest of the United Nations was fast asleep.

The open-ended Ad Hoc informal Working Group, which negotiated the deal, has been dragging its collective feet since it was initially convened back in 2006.

The High Seas Alliance, a coalition of 27 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) plus the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), played a significant role in pushing for negotiations on the proposed treaty.

Karen Sack, senior director of international oceans for The Pew Charitable Trusts, a member of the coalition, told IPS a Preparatory Committee (Prep Com), comprising of all 193 member states, will start next year.

A grey nurse shark at Shoal Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Credit: Klaus Stiefel/cc by 2.0

“As part of reaching consensus, however, there was no deadline set for finalising the treaty,” she said.

Asked if negotiations on the treaty would be difficult, she said, “Negotiations are always tough but a lot of discussion has happened over almost a decade on the issues under consideration and there are definitely certain issues where swift progress could be made.”

The Prep Com will report to the General Assembly with substantive recommendations in 2017 on convening an intergovernmental conference for the purpose of elaborating an internationally legally binding instrument.

The four-day discussions faced initial resistance from several countries, including the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and South Korea, and to some extent Iceland, according to one of the participants at the meeting.

But eventually they joined the large majority of states in favour of the development of a high seas agreement.

Still they resisted the adoption of a time-bound negotiating process, and “setting a start and end date was for them a step too far,” he added.

Sofia Tsenikli, senior oceans policy advisor at Greenpeace International, told IPS: “Regarding the United States in particular, we are very pleased to see them finally show flexibility and hope that moving forward they find a way to support a more ambitious timeline.”

In a statement released Saturday, the High Seas Alliance said progress came despite pressure from a small group of governments that questioned the need for a new legal framework.

“That minority blocked agreement on a faster timeline reflecting the clear scientific imperative for action, but all countries agreed on the need to act,” it added.

The members of the High Seas Alliance applauded the decision to move forward.

Lisa Speer of the Natural Resources Defence Council said many states have shown great efforts to protect the half of the planet that is the high seas.

“We know that these states will continue to champion the urgent need for more protection in the process before us,” she added.

Daniela Diz of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Saturday’s decision was a decisive step forward for ocean conservation. “We can now look to a future in which we bring conservation for the benefit of all humankind to these vital global commons.”

Mission Blue‘s Dr Sylvia Earle said, “Armed with new knowledge, we are taking our first steps to safeguard the high seas and keep the world safe for our children.”

The outcome of the meeting will now have to be approved by the General Assembly by September 2015, which is considered a formality.

The high seas is the ocean beyond any country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) ‑ amounting to 64 percent of the ocean ‑ and the ocean seabed that lies beyond the continental shelf of any country, according to a background briefing released by the Alliance.

These areas make up nearly 50 percent of the surface of the Earth and include some of the most environmentally important, critically threatened and least protected ecosystems on the planet.

Only an international High Seas Biodiversity Agreement would address the inadequate, highly fragmented and poorly implemented legal and institutional framework that is currently failing to protect the high seas ‑ and therefore the entire global ocean ‑ from the multiple threats they face in the 21st century.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

A trawler in Johnstone Strait, BC, Canada. Human activities such as pollution, overfishing, mining, geo-engineering and climate change have made an international agreement to protect the high seas more critical than ever. Credit: Winky/cc by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20 2015 (IPS)

The United Nations will make its third – and perhaps final – attempt at reaching an agreement to launch negotiations for an international biodiversity treaty governing the high seas.

A four-day meeting of a U.N. Ad Hoc Working Group is expected to take a decision by Friday against a September 2015 deadline to begin negotiations on the proposed treaty.“The world’s international waters, or high seas, are a modern-day Wild West, with weak rules and few sheriffs.” -- Lisa Speer of NRDC

Sofia Tsenikli, senior oceans policy advisor at Greenpeace International, told IPS, “This is the last scheduled meeting where we hope to see the decision to launch negotiations materialise.”

Asked about the timeline for the final treaty itself, she said “it really depends on the issues that will come up during the negotiations.”

In a statement released Monday, the High Seas Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups, said the high seas is a vast area that makes up nearly two-thirds of the ocean and about 50 percent of the planet’s surface, and currently falls outside of any country’s national jurisdiction.

“This means it’s the largest unprotected and lawless region on Earth,” the Alliance noted.

The lack of governance on the high seas is widely accepted as one of the major factors contributing to ocean degradation from human activities.

The issues to be discussed include marine protected areas and environmental impact assessments in areas beyond national jurisdiction, as well as benefit-sharing of marine genetic resources, capacity building and transfer of marine technology.

At the same time, the growing threat from human activities, including pollution, overfishing, mining, geo-engineering, and climate change, have made an international agreement to protect these waters more critical than ever, says the High Seas Alliance.

Lisa Speer, international oceans programme director at the Natural Resources Defence Council, says “The world’s international waters, or high seas, are a modern-day Wild West, with weak rules and few sheriffs.”

Kristina M. Gjerde, senior high seas policy advisor at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told IPS U.N. member states have the historic opportunity to launch negotiations for a new global agreement to better protect, conserve and sustain the nearly 50 percent of the planet that is found beyond national boundaries.

The U.N. process, initiated at the 2012 Rio+20 summit in Brazil, has extensively explored the scope, parameters and feasibility of a possible new international instrument under the 1994 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), she added.

“It is clear that by now the vast majority of States are overwhelmingly in support,” Gjerde said.

Though some outstanding issues remain, IUCN is confident that once negotiations are launched, rapid progress can be made toward achieving an effective and equitable agreement, she added.

“With good luck, good will and good faith, negotiations, including a preparatory stage, could be accomplished in as little as two to three years,” Gjerde declared.

At the Rio+20 meeting, member states pledged to launch negotiations for the new treaty by the end of the 69th U.N. General Assembly in September 2015.

In a briefing paper released Monday, Greenpeace called on the 193-member General Assembly to take a “historic decision to develop an agreement under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond the jurisdiction of States.”

Unfortunately a few countries, including the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Iceland, have expressed opposition to an agreement going forward. But this could change, it added.

Norway – previously unconvinced – has now become supportive and calls for the launch of a meaningful implementing agreement for biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ).

For the United States in particular, said Greenpeace, standing against progress towards a U.N. agreement that would provide the framework for establishing a global network of ocean sanctuaries would be at odds with the U.S.’s leadership on ocean issues such as the establishment of marine reserves in EEZ’s (Exclusive Economic Zones) as well as the Arctic, Antarctic and fight against illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing.

The environmental groups say there is overwhelming support for an UNCLOS implementing agreement from countries and regional country groupings across the world, from Southeast Asian nations, to African governments, European and Latin American countries and Small Island Developing States.

Among them are Australia, New Zealand, the African Union, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Group of 77 developing nations plus China, the 28-member European Union, Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, Mexico, Benin, Pakistan, Uruguay, Uganda and many more.

Karen Sack, senior director of The Pew Charitable Trusts international oceans work, said the upcoming decision could signal a new era of international cooperation on the high seas.

“If countries can commit to work together on legal protections for biodiversity on the high seas, we can close existing management gaps and secure a path toward sustainable development and ecosystem recovery,” she added.

According to the environmental group, the high seas is defined as the ocean beyond any country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – amounting to 64 percent of the ocean – and the ocean seabed that lies beyond the continental shelf of any country.

These areas make up nearly 50 percent of the surface of the Earth and include some of the most environmentally important, critically threatened and least protected ecosystems on the planet.

Only an international High Seas Biodiversity Agreement, says the coalition, would address the inadequate, highly fragmented and poorly implemented legal and institutional framework that is currently failing to protect the high seas – and therefore the entire global ocean – from the multiple threats they face in the 21st century.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Sea level rise threatens Raolo island in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 11 2013 (IPS)

Threatened by rising seas, some of the world’s small island developing states (SIDS) are demanding that the U.N.’s new set of Sustainable Development Goals place a high priority on the protection of oceans and marine resources.

A growing number of SIDS, including Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Maldives, Tonga, Nauru and Kiribati, are making a strong case for a stand-alone goal for the protection of oceans in the post-2015 development agenda known as the SDGs, which is currently under discussion."There is absolutely no way that humanity can have a sustainable future without healthy oceans." -- Cyrie Sendashonga of IUCN

Hassan Hussain Shihab, first secretary of the Maldives diplomatic mission to the U.N., told IPS that oceans are a priority for the Indian Ocean island nation, whose 339,000 citizens are threatened by sea-level rise.

“The establishment of an SDG dedicated to oceans is critical to Maldives as the oceans are our source of life, livelihood and the identity of the people,” he said.

Covering more than 70 percent of our planet’s surface, he said, oceans play a key role in supporting life on earth.

“They regulate our climate, provide us with natural resources and are essential for international trade, recreation and cultural activities,” he said. “We therefore strongly call for the creation of a Sustainable Development Goal for oceans, which covers the coasts, the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the high seas.”

Mark Neo, deputy permanent representative of Singapore, told IPS oceans are also the economic lifeblood of his country, also one of the 52 designated SIDS.

“As an entrepot, we are highly dependent on maritime trade. And oceans are a precious resource and there are many users of the oceans,” he said.

“We believe that given the many demands on the oceans and its resources, the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and seas and of their resources for sustainable development is important,” he added.

Neo said the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea must form the legal framework of any sustainable development goal on oceans.

Addressing the General Assembly in September, King Tupou VI of Tonga told delegates, “Tonga joins SIDS in calling for the inclusion of climate change as a cross-cutting issue of SDGs.

“Oceans are a thematic priority and should also be prominently featured in the SDGs and the post-2015 agenda,” he said.

The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Winston Baldwin Spencer, has called for greater international support for SIDS.

“It is a recognised fact, but it is worth repeating, that SIDS contribute the least to the causes of climate change, yet we suffer the most from its effects,” he told delegates during the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) sessions in September.

He said small island states have expressed “our profound disappointment at the lack of tangible action.”

The current president of 193-member UNGA, Ambassador John Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda, has expressed his strong support for sustainable development.

His spokesperson Afaf Konja told IPS the UNGA president was “very keen on the issue” and is fully aware of the importance of oceans on SDGs.

She said oceans are expected to be high on the agenda of the open working group (OWG) currently negotiating SDGs and the post-2015 economic agenda.

The OWG is expected to complete its work in mid-2014 and its final report, with a new set of SDGs, will go before a meeting of world leaders in New York in September 2015.

Cyrie Sendashonga, global policy director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told IPS healthy oceans are essential to sustainable development, supplying food, oxygen, carbon storage and other vital services for humanity.

Oceans are front and central in the quest for sustainable development and deserve their own Sustainable Development Goal, she added.

“There is absolutely no way that humanity can have a sustainable future without healthy oceans as they play a vital role in ensuring critical ecological and geological processes, and in sustaining livelihoods and human well-being in general,” Sendashonga said at a U.N. seminar last month.

Any discussions in the SDGs and the post-2015 development agenda processes have to take this into account, she said.

As the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly documents, 90 percent of the climate change energy, since 1971, has actually gone into the ocean in the form of ocean warming, and warming may have started as far back at the 1870s, Sendashonga pointed out.

Overfishing, pollution and increasing nutrient levels compound these effects, weakening food webs and ecosystem integrity.

“Urgent and far more ambitious actions are therefore needed to keep pace with the changes in the ocean,” she said.

A Pacific island nation with a tiny population of about 100,800, Kiribati is one of the many SIDS in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth because of rising sea levels.

“Healthy oceans are critical for delivering on the U.N.’s post-2015 development goals,” said Ambassador Makurita Baaro, permanent representative of Kiribati.

“We have to be the most studied, most researched and the most media-covered nation relating to climate change,” she told delegates last week at a meeting of the U.N.’s social and economic committee.

Sea levels are rising, coastlines are being eroded, and extreme weather events were growing more common, she said, even as the United Nations was providing large-scale humanitarian assistance to thousands of victims of a typhoon that devastated parts of Philippines over the weekend.

A little overshadowed by the Olympics, the Yeosu 2012 Expo is, in its own way, doing more than the London Games to promote global harmony – and without stirring up the waters the way the British did when they posted the ROK flag for the DPRK women’s soccer team.

Next weekend, as the Expo holds another session celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Law of the Sea, with an Asian perspective, it is worth remembering that there are people in the U.S. establishment every bit as pugnaciously ideological as any Pyongyang commissar – and above all on the question of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

It has been five years since the George W. Bush administration, not the most U.N.-friendly of recent presidencies, declared the need for the U.S. to ratify the treaty, backed by the Pentagon and the Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.That was already 25 years after the rest of the world had finished drafting the treaty.

Since then, the melting sea ice in the Arctic and the competing claims to seabed resources there under the former polar ice cap, have accentuated the U.S. need for the treaty. Not just the Navy, but telecoms, maritime and oil lobbies have put their weight behind ratification.

Recently an open letter signed by previous Republican secretaries of state also called for it.

On Jul. 16, however, 34 Republican senators signed a letter opposing ratification, which is one more than necessary to block the two-thirds majority necessary.

It is a moot point whether the opposition to the treaty from inside the U.S. is motivated by specific objections to its provisions or just a generalised conservative aversion to all forms of international law.

However, in any case it is a sad commentary on the U.S. government that a bigoted minority has thwarted U.S. participation in a convention universally welcomed by all rational U.S. political factions and which has already been signed by 162 other countries.

Former Canadian minister of state for external affairs Mark MacGuigan described the convention’s truly global scope at the conference which produced the final draft:

“The Conference is not merely an attempt to codify technical rules of law. It is a resource Conference: it is a food Conference; it is an environmental Conference; it is an energy Conference; it is an economic Conference; it is maritime-boundary delimitation Conference; it is a territorial-limitation and jurisdictional Conference; it is a transportation, communications and freedom-of-navigation Conference; it is a Conference which regulates all the uses of the ocean by humanity.

“Most important, it is a Conference which provides for the peaceful settlement of disputing the oceans. It is, in other words, a Conference dedicated to the rule of law among nations.”

Which is, perhaps, why some in the U.S. want nothing to do with it.

In fact, the treaty was carefully crafted over years of negotiations to provide inducements to countries to join the convention since it went beyond customary international law in what it offered signatories – and in an effort to woo the U.S. signature, Washington’s concerns were taken into account at every stage.

It was relatively easy to establish conventions on outer space, and indeed on the Antarctic, since there was little or no commercial or military activity going on there. Indeed, in 1957, before U.S. isolationism and exceptionalism resurfaced as potent political forces in Washington, the U.S. had signed the Antarctic Treaty, which froze all the old territorial claims and kept the icebound continent free from military action and land grabs. The treaty has stood the test of time.

But ITLOS had to take into account not only the millennia-long history of human endeavours on the oceans, but also the future aspirations, like sea bottom mining. It took decades of intricate negotiations to take into account the competing demands of countries that included not only the traditional maritime nations but those landlocked countries that understandably claimed rights to seabed resources that are, as it were, the shared patrimony of the whole world.

The very first case to go to the Hamburg-based International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea demonstrated the need for it. In 1997, the MV Saiga, an oil tanker registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines, owned by Cypriots, chartered by Swiss, managed by a Scottish company, officered by Ukrainians and crewed by Senegalese, had been bunkering fishing vessels off the coast of Guinea when patrol boats from there seized the ship and detained the crew.

Guinea claimed a customs zone that extended 250 miles from its coast. The tribunal ordered the release of the ship and crew on payment of a bond, and, after consideration, it threw out the Guinean claim and ordered the ship and its crew freed. Under the convention, Guinea was not entitled to claim more than 200 miles for its exclusive economic zone.

Conventional law could not have coped with such complex jurisdictional disputes, but ITLOS can. Only last year, the tribunal resolved its first boundary dispute between Myanmar and Bangladesh, to apparent mutual satisfaction – just as it could adjudicate on Russian claims to the seabed under the North Pole that compete with those of Canada and the U.S.

But Washington’s failure to ratify the treaty knocks it out of the process, hence the rush of interest by all but most blinkered. It is not only bad for the U.S., it sends a wrong signal to the rest of the world – not least to the countries surrounding the China Sea.

Half a dozen navies are circling round asserting competing claims to atolls and islets with their territorial waters. They are interested in the oil under the water, but their unresolved disputes are like gasoline waiting for a match. Clearly, an arbitrated legal adjudication could resolve the situation.

But the biggest navy in the area, with treaties with many of the claimant nations, belongs to a nation that has yet to sign up for the most appropriate body of law and institutions to cope with the complexity of the region.

One has to feel sympathetic to President Barack Obama, dealing with an opposition whose concerns about economic and military conflagrations come second to their desire to see him out the White House.

But ratification is not only good for the U.S. and for the world, it would allow the president, backed by all those Republican secretaries of state, presidents and chairmen of the Foreign Relations Committee, to expose the ideological obduracy of his opponents. President Obama should at least sign the treaty and challenge Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to explain why his supporters oppose ratification.

We can assume that for some of them, it is simply a case of going along with raucous idiocy, and they might reconsider if the White House summoned some of those oil and defence lobbyists to make a call.

*Ian Williams is a senior analyst at Foreign Policy In Focus, and columnist, Tribune.

By Isabelle de Grave
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2012 (IPS)

At the Yeosu World Expo 2012, the U.N. commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), highlighting efforts to quell the global scourge of piracy.

Patricia O’Brien. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

With its theme of the “Living Oceans and Coast”, Expo 2012 has turned the attention of a global audience to marine issues ranging from declining fish stocks and pollution to illegal fishing and piracy.

“Piracy has existed for thousands of years. It had substantially diminished in the end of the nineteenth century and seemed to have become one of the legends of the past, gradually disappearing from criminal law legislation,” Patricia O’Brien, U.N. under secretary-general for legal affairs, said at the Expo 2012 U.N. Pavilion.

“A few decades ago, the ‘pirate phoenix’ appeared to be rising again to become a regional, if not a global scourge,” she told the audience prior to a film screening on the law of the seas.

In an interview with U.N. correspondent Isabelle de Grave, Patricia O’Brien talks about current efforts under UNCLOS and beyond to combat piracy in the Malacca Strait, which runs between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Q: How serious is the threat of piracy to Asia?

A: The threat of piracy and armed robbery on board ships is of utmost importance to the U.N. and we are constantly monitoring the situation. Piracy poses a serious threat to the economies of all nations, as 80 percent of the volume of global trade is seaborne, representing 70 percent of its value, and it is expected to increase by 36 percent by 2020.

The Strait of Malacca is particularly prone to pirate attacks as one of the most important and strategic passages for maritime trade between Europe and East Asia. It supports 50 percent of the world’s oil shipments, including 80 percent of petroleum imports to Japan and the Republic of Korea among others.

Furthermore, at the regional and local levels, piracy poses a serious threat to the safety and security of seafarers and fishermen, whose means of livelihood directly depend on their ability to access specific maritime spaces and routes. Southeast Asian waters, and the many island and archipelagic states therein, are no exception. The safety of maritime circulation also bears heavily on the ability of some of these states to maintain political stability.

Q: Many fisherman impoverished by declining fish stocks turn to piracy. Will the Yeosu Project, which aims to build the capacity of emerging countries to address such issues, contribute to combating piracy?

A: The initiative taken by the Republic of Korea is commendable, and constitutes an important part of the regional and international efforts that must be undertaken by States Parties to UNCLOS and to the 1995 Agreement relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks to promote the conservation of fish stocks, both within and beyond the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ, a nation’s official territorial waters).

However, the root causes of piracy do not only lie in the mismanagement of fish stocks and the depletion of resources from seas and oceans. If the trends regarding piracy off the coast of Somalia are to provide any guidance, whereby pirates have expanded their areas of operation and acquired heavier artillery, allowing them to attack larger ships further out at sea, major shipping routes such as the Strait of Malacca should continue to be monitored closely.

Although reported incidents of piracy in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore saw a 50 percent decrease between the first half of 2011 and the first half of 2012, coastal states as well as ship owners should not become complacent. Coastal States have a responsibility to adopt and implement best management practices when operating in areas with a high level of activities.

They also have to educate transiting merchant ships on their local fishing practices and procedures in order to reduce instances of transgression of fishing gear, as well as incidents where merchant ships mistake fishing vessels for pirates. Incidents of piracy will only consistently decrease if these issues are tackled simultaneously.

In this globalised economy, where a state’s economy may still be impacted by acts of piracy committed thousands of miles away, improving the socioeconomic situation of fishermen locally is no longer sufficient.

Q: How effective are UNCLOS and other regional and international initiatives in the fight against piracy?

A: The definition of the crime of piracy is contained in UNCLOS under one of the most significant sections of the Convention, (article 101 Part VII) that regulates the High Seas. States have an obligation to cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy and have universal jurisdiction on the high seas to seize pirate ships and aircrafts and arrest the persons and seize the property on board.

UNCLOS provisions have been subject to national implementation by many states, which have issued legislation to criminalise piracy, allowing their domestic courts to prosecute persons suspected of this crime.

For instance, concerning piracy off the coast of Somalia, over 1,100 persons have either been arrested or tried and found guilty on the basis of such legislation. And efforts are continuing, at the international and regional levels, to assist states in building the capacity to conduct effective prosecutions and enforce the sentences imposed, which will have a deterrent effect on communities where the culture of piracy is still rampant.

The Strait of Malacca benefits from a patrolling system akin to that established with the convoy participation process off the coast of Somalia that the Republic of Korea just joined.

The Malacca Straits Patrols (MSP) is comprised of the Malacca Straits Sea Patrol (MSSP), the “Eyes-in-the-Sky” (EiS) air patrols, and the Intelligence Exchange Group (IEG), which are a set of practical cooperative security measures undertaken by the four littoral States, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, to ensure the security of the Strait of Malacca.

This arrangement entails conducting coordinated naval and air patrols while facilitating the sharing of information between ships and the Monitoring Action Agency. This is a very sophisticated system, which has allowed the number of piracy attacks in the Malacca Strait to drop from 38 reported incidents in 2004 to none in 2011, as per the International Maritime Bureau data.

Excerpt:

A fishing boat in the Bay of Bengal, the site of a maritime boundary dispute between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Credit: CC by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 24 2012 (IPS)

As part of its overall theme to educate the public about the state of the world’s oceans, the international exhibition Expo 2012 will shift its focus next month to what has been described as “possibly the most significant legal instrument” of the 21st century: the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The United Nations, in conjunction with South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Korean Maritime Institute, will host an international conference to discuss “Asian perspectives” of UNCLOS.

Coincidentally, the conference follows the first ever decision in a maritime boundary dispute, and an “unprecedented advisory opinion”, by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) last March.

The dispute in the Bay of Bengal was between two Asian nations, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma), and the judgement has been described as “fair, equitable and balanced” by both parties.

The three-day conference is scheduled to take place Aug. 11-13 at the sprawling exhibition site in the Korean coastal town of Yeosu, in cooperation with the Organising Committee of Expo 2012.

Amina Mohamed, deputy executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and co-commissioner-general of Expo, told IPS that from the U.N.’s perspective, the seas form part of what is referred to as the “global commons” and “as such any threat to this global resource ought to be addressed.”

She said visitors to the U.N. Pavilion in the Expo site will have the opportunity to learn all about UNCLOS.

The 30th anniversary of the landmark 1982 U.N. treaty will also be commemorated at a high-level meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly in December this year.

“It is a well-known fact that more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water,” says Under-Secretary-General Patricia O’Brien, the U.N.’s Legal Counsel and head of the Department of Legal Affairs.

“I believe that we have all shared a sentiment of awe the day we contemplated, for the first time, a picture of the earth taken from space, and we came to the realisation that ours is a blue planet: a planet of oceans and seas.”

Running parallel to the Expo 2012 theme, the Law of the Sea has articulated a set of rules that covers essential aspects of human life: maritime trade and transportation; the preservation of the marine environment and biological diversity; fishing; and the exploitation of natural resources in the seabed.

At the same time, the law also stipulates rules that govern the placement of submarine cables, including those that allow broadband internet connections, and the safety of navigation and the fight against piracy.

With the United Nations as one of the key partners of Expo 2012, the focus on the Law of the Sea will provide a new political dimension to the exhibition which is due to conclude Aug. 12.

While 162 countries are state parties to the convention, there are still about 34 countries which have opted to remain outside the treaty – either not signing or ratifying it.

These include the United States, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya.

In March, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent letters to all 34 member states urging them to join the treaty during its 30th anniversary this year.

The treaty established three institutions: the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Seabed Authority, and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

During a visit to Yeosu last month, O’Brien said UNCLOS lays down a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world’s oceans and seas.

Comprising 320 articles and nine annexes, it governs all aspects of ocean space, such as delimitation, marine environment, marine scientific research, economic and commercial activities, transfer of technology and the settlement of disputes relating to ocean matters.

“A fundamental notion enshrined in the Convention is that all problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be addressed as a whole,” she said.

O’Brien also pointed out that as far as territorial rights are concerned, coastal states may, under UNCLOS, establish the breadth of their territorial sea, up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles.

She said each state exercises sovereignty over its territorial sea, while foreign vessels are allowed what is known as “innocent passage” through those waters.

“I believe it is quite fitting to mention that a 30th anniversary is traditionally called a ‘pearl anniversary’, an anniversary that is celebrated through a gift from the oceans, that has come to symbolise something unique, delicate and precious as our marine ecosystem,” she said.

Defying the wishes of both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Navy, Republican senators have effectively halted – for now – an effort by the administration of President Barack Obama to gain ratification of the 30-year-old Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

Republicans opposed to the treaty announced late Monday that 34 senators had committed themselves to oppose it if it came to a vote, thus depriving the treaty’s supporters – both Democrats and the dwindling number of moderate Republicans – of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify treaties.

“This is Victory Day for U.S. sovereignty in the Senate,” exulted Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe late Monday. “With 34 (senators) opposed to LOST, this debate is over.”

But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry suggested that he may push the treaty again after the November elections in hopes that it can be ratified once partisan passions subside.

“Sen. Kerry has been here long enough to know that vote counts and letters are just a snapshot of where our politics are in this instant, and it’s not news to anyone that right now we’re in the middle of a white-hot political campaign season where ideology is running in overdrive,” Kerry’s spokesperson, Jodi Seth, told the influential “Cable” blog on the foreignpolicy.com website.

“That’s why Sen. Kerry made it clear there wouldn’t be a vote before the election and until everyone’s had the chance to evaluate the treaty on the facts and the merits away from the politics of the moment,” she added.

Treaty advocates believe that several of the Republicans – including a couple who are reportedly being considered by Gov. Mitt Romney as his vice-presidential running-mate in November – may be persuaded to change their view after the election.

In particular, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who served as U.S. Trade Representative under former President George W. Bush, has long enjoyed the strong support of the Chamber of Commerce, which has also been among the most important proponents of the treaty.

“Once we’re out of election mode, I believe there will be a greater appetite to consider the treaty again,” said Don Kraus, who heads Citizens for Global Solutions, a grassroots group that promotes U.S. engagement with international institutions. “A final vote will be close, but we won’t know until it comes to the floor.”

The product of some 15 years of negotiations, LOST, which has been ratified by 161 countries and the European Union, sets rules governing most areas of ocean policy, including navigation and over- flight rights, exploitation of the seabed, conservation and research.

Successive administrations – both Democratic and Republican – led negotiations for the treaty from the late 1960s onward. But when completed in 1982, then-President Ronald Reagan, under pressure from big U.S. mining and energy companies, rejected it, citing its provisions for deep-sea mining, particularly its requirement that mining claims be regulated by a Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA).

Nonetheless, Reagan ordered the government to abide by all other sections of the treaty, which amounted essentially to a codification of existing international customary and maritime international law.

In 1994, the seabed provisions of the treaty were amended to satisfy Reagan’s objections. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – the latter in his second term – subsequently supported its ratification. In 2007, it was approved by the Foreign Relations Committee by a lopsided 17-4 vote but was never sent to the floor for final action.

After Obama took office in 2009, his administration listed LOST as one of a half-dozen treaties, including the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – on which Kerry is currently holding hearings – as priorities for ratification.

None, however, have yet made any headway on Capitol Hill due to opposition by Republicans, a growing number of whom have argued that international treaties unduly constrain Washington’s freedom of action in the world and threaten its sovereignty.

That was the major theme of letter written by Inhofe and signed by 30 other Republican senators to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Monday.

“We are writing to let you know that we believe this Convention reflects political, economic, and ideological assumptions which are inconsistent with American values and sovereignty,” the letter asserted.

On the same day, a 32nd senator announced his opposition to the treaty, while Portman and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte – both considered possible vice-presidential candidates – sent their own letter in which they stated, “We are simply not persuaded that decisions by the International Seabed Authority and international tribunals empowered by this treaty will be more favourable to U.S. interests than bilateral negotiations, voluntary arbitration, and other traditional means of resolving maritime issues.”

Romney himself has so far not yet taken a formal position on LOST, although in his 2008 presidential campaign said he had “concerns” about the treaty’s “giving unaccountable international institutions more power.”

At that time, he was running as a Republican moderate but has since adopted the more-unilateralist and militarist positions reminiscent of those of Bush’s first term when Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld dominated foreign policy.

Indeed, the star witness for the opposition during the Committee’s hearings on the treaty was Rumsfeld himself, while David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff, played a key role in organising the opposition from his base at the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

John Bolton, Bush’s former U.N. ambassador who joined the the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute after leaving government, has also written prolifically against the treaty.

What is particularly remarkable is the fact that many of the treaty’s supporters, notably the Chamber of Commerce and major oil, gas, and mining corporations, represent traditional strongholds of the Republican Party.

“U.S. businesses from shipping to telecommunications to offshore energy production cannot plan and invest as needed without the legal certainty that comes with Law of the Sea Treaty ratification,” warned Thomas Donohue, the Chamber’s powerful president in a full-page ad co-sponsored by the Chamber, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the American Petroleum Institute that ran in major publications last month.

Similarly, the U.S. Navy – traditionally the most conservative of the armed services – has long championed the treaty because of its recognition of navigation rights for warships. Its appeals on behalf of the ratification have grown increasingly urgent as a result of growing tensions between China and its neighbours in the South and East China Seas, as well as the burgeoning interest in territorial claims in the Arctic.

The treaty’s foes have argued that the enforcement of navigation rights ultimately depends on the strength of the U.S. Navy and “not on paper treaties signed at the United Nations,” as Addington recently put it.

“Americans who seek to preserve the advance the rights of Americans to use the seas should support a strong national defense, including a strong Navy that can project American power across the globe in defense of American interests,” he wrote on Heritage’s “The Foundry” blog Tuesday.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

LOST, which has been ratified by 161 countries and the European Union, sets rules governing most areas of ocean policy. Credit:U.S. Navy photo

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 7 2012 (IPS)

Given the wide range of its supporters – everyone from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces to Greenpeace – one would think that Senate ratification of the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) would be a slam dunk.

The fact that it isn’t testifies to the degree to which forces of the U.S. far right have maintained or strengthened their hold on the Republican Party and to the abiding strength of the kind of aggressive and unilateral nationalism that dominated the first terms of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Since the launch last month of a major campaign by big business, the Pentagon and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry to gain LOST’s ratification, some two dozen Republican senators have signalled their opposition.

Only 34 are needed to kill it. The U.S. constitution requires that two-thirds of the 100-member chambre must vote “aye” to ratify a treaty.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, has so far been silent. But in his 2008 campaign, the former Massachusetts governor, who was then running as a “moderate”, said he had “concerns” about the treaty’s “giving unaccountable international institutions more power”.

If pressed to take a position before the election, treaty supporters are worried he’ll oppose it.

That is one reason why Kerry intends to delay a vote on the treaty in his committee until after the November election when partisan passions – currently on the boil and rising fast – may cool.

The product of some 15 years of negotiations, LOST, which has been ratified by 161 countries and the European Union, sets rules governing most areas of ocean policy, including navigation and over- flight rights, exploitation of the seabed, conservation and research.

Successive administrations – both Democratic and Republican – led negotiations for the treaty from the late 1960s onward. But when completed in 1982, then-President Ronald Reagan, under pressure from big U.S. mining and energy companies, rejected it, citing its provisions for deep-sea mining, particularly its requirement that mining claims be regulated by a Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA).

Nonetheless, Reagan ordered the government to abide by all other sections of the treaty, which amounted essentially to a codification of existing international customary and maritime international law.

In 1994, the seabed provisions of the treaty were amended to satisfy Reagan’s objections. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – the latter, however, only in his second term – subsequently supported its ratification. In 2007, it was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a lopsided 17-4 vote but was never sent to the floor for final action.

After Obama took office in 2009, his administration listed LOST as one of a half-dozen treaties, including the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (which has been ratified by 185 countries), as priorities for ratification.

None, however, have yet made any headway on Capitol Hill due to opposition by Republicans, a growing number of whom have argued that international treaties unduly constrain Washington’s freedom of action in the world and threaten its sovereignty.

All branches of the U.S. armed services, particularly the Navy, have long supported the treaty because of its recognition of navigation rights for vessels engaged in military activities. In addition, the same U.S. mining and energy interests that had previously opposed the treaty because of its possible interference with deep-sea drilling or mining have also now lined up in favour.

It was Pentagon chief Leon Panetta who launched the new ratification campaign at a Law of the Sea symposium May 9 and who later appeared with the chiefs of all four armed services, as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to testify in favour of the treaty before Kerry’s committee two weeks later.

“(T)his treaty is absolutely critical to U.S. national security …the longer we delay, the more we undermine our own national security interests,” said Panetta, who this week urged Washington’s Asian allies worried about China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea at the Shangri-La Defence Dialogue in Singapore to speak out in support of ratification.

Similarly, U.S. oil, gas, and mining industries that have developed new technology to exploit the deep seabed, as well as telecommunications companies that rely on undersea cables, have come out strongly for ratification, insisting that U.S. adherence to the treaty would not only offer them greater security in undertaking such expensive investments, but also give Washington a voice in managing the ISA.

“Accession would provide American businesses certainty and legal equality to the largest of the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) available under (LOST), and the corresponding natural resources and shipping rights of way,” according to R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“(It) would also provide much-needed certainty and predictability to claims of control over territory in the Arctic, enhancing our national security, (and) … protect U.S. claims to the vast natural resources contained on the ocean floor.”

Nonetheless, the treaty’s foes have launched a counter-campaign led mainly by the far-right Heritage Foundation and the neo-conservative Centre for Security Policy (CSP).

Writing in the Los Angeles Times Tuesday, Heritage’s Edwin Meese, who served as Reagan’s attorney-general and long-time confidant, insisted that his former boss would still oppose ratification and suggested that LOST was part of a broader effort to undermine U.S. sovereignty.

“To secure navigational freedom, territorial rights and all national and international interests addressed in LOST,” he wrote, “we must maintain the strength of the U.S. Navy, not look to an anachronistic pact that is intent on advancing a one-world agenda.”

The notion that the Navy, rather than a “piece of paper”, should act as the guarantor of U.S. maritime interests has been echoed by far- right senators.

“The Senate should reject this dangerous hand over of U.S. sovereignty. Instead, it should provide the Navy with the resources necessary to keep it the best force on the high seas,” wrote three of them Politico last month. Treaty supporters, on the other hand, were buoyed by the tentative endorsement offered by Sen. John McCain, who had opposed the treaty during his 2008 presidential campaign, as well as by a strong op-ed by the last five living former Republican secretaries of state, including Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, published in the Wall Street Journal last week.

“We have been on the sidelines long enough,” they wrote. “Now is the time to get on the field and lead.”

Much of the pro-treaty efforts is being coordinated by a coalition called the “National Security Steering Committee” and chaired by former Republican Sen. and Secretary of the Navy, John Warner. It has launched what it calls, somewhat provocatively, “The American Sovereignty Campaign” and a website, “ratifythetreatynow.org”.

A spokesman for the group, Jeffrey Pike, described the concerns of the treaty’s foes as “silly” and stressed that ratification “will actually strengthen and expand our sovereignty”.

“We’ve been losing it and we need to regain it,” he told IPS, adding, “The urgency and the push and desire from the business community for ratification have never been greater.”

That’s as it should be, said one insider, the head of a large grassroots group that lobbies for greater international co-operation, who spoke on background. “Right now, the target audience on this is about 15 Republican senators” – or about a third of the party’s Senate caucus. “The military and industry are the only people who are going be able to sway these (senators).”

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.