Do We Really Want to Place the U.S. Navy under International Judicial Supervision? Security Concerns in the Law of the Sea Treaty

he trajectory of the Law of the Sea treaty has been somewhat similar to the new law of war. In the 1980s, major European nations joined with the United States in resisting the Law of the Sea's elaborate scheme for establishing an international regulatory structure to control deep-sea mining--an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2007
Main Author: Rabkin, Jeremy A
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
American Enterprise Institute
Foreign policy
International law
National security
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:he trajectory of the Law of the Sea treaty has been somewhat similar to the new law of war. In the 1980s, major European nations joined with the United States in resisting the Law of the Sea's elaborate scheme for establishing an international regulatory structure to control deep-sea mining--and to guarantee a portion of proceeds from such activities to developing nations. In the early 1990s, an appendix was negotiated that simplified the regulatory structure and seemed to guarantee against abuses. It did so by requiring that all substantive regulations be approved by consensus of a political "council" and then effectively assuring that the United States would have a permanent seat (with veto power) on this council. All European states proceeded to ratify the treaty, which has now been embraced by more than 150 nations around the world. The George W. Bush administration has urged the United States to embrace this treaty, and there is an impressive range of interests and advocates urging that we join most other nations in this enterprise.