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Murkowski wants treaty ratified U.S. needs to become a party to the international law of the sea treaty to stake Arctic offshore land claims, the senator says By Alan Bailey Petroleum News
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has weighed in on the debate about U.S. ratification of the international Convention on the Law of the Sea treaty.“I believe it is very important for the United States to be a party to this treaty and be a player in the process, rather than an outsider hoping our interests are not damaged,” Murkowski told a forum called “U.S. Strategy in the Arctic: Energy, Security and the Geopolitics of the High North” on July 23. The forum was sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a public policy think tank.
Murkowski said that without treaty ratification the United States could lose out on claims for vast areas of the offshore Arctic.
“If the U.S. were to become a party to the treaty, we could lay claim to an area in the Arctic of about 450,000 square kilometers, or approximately the size of California,” Murkowski said. “If we do not become a party to the treaty, our opportunity to make this claim and have the international community respect it diminishes considerably, as does our ability to prevent claims like Russia’s from coming to fruition.”
The Convention on the Law of the Sea consists of an international treaty establishing rules for all aspects of ocean use, including the rights of passage in or over ocean waters; the territorial sovereignty of coastal nations; the geographical limits of territorial seas and economic exclusion zones; and the environmental protection of the oceans. Provisions in the convention allow for the possible extension of a coastal nation’s legally recognized continental shelf beyond the 200-mile limit of that nation’s economic exclusion zone. On the continental shelf the nation would maintain sovereign rights over resource development, including oil and gas development. Consequently countries such as Russia and Canada that have ratified the convention have been scrambling to claim extended areas of continental shelf.
156 nations Although 156 nations and entities such as the European Union have ratified the convention, the United States has not yet done so. U.S. critics of the treaty have argued that the convention undermines U.S. sovereignty and that customary international law already protects U.S. interests. Some have also expressed concern about the potential for the terms of the convention to compromise U.S. security interests.
President Bush and Sen. Ted Stevens have both expressed support for ratification.
Murkowski pointed out that Canada is planning an Arctic military training facility on the Northwest Passage and that Russia has planted a flag on the seabed at the North Pole. Russia is also building an offshore oil rig that can withstand extreme cold and pack ice, she said.
The United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia have adopted a declaration of cooperation in the Arctic that supports the Law of the Sea treaty as a legal framework, Murkowski said.
“The Arctic is truly the last frontier,” Murkowski said. “It is one of the few places on earth where all the borders aren’t drawn on the map yet and some of those that are, are disputed. While the anticipated claims do overlap in many cases, there exists an opportunity to address these claims and many of the other key issues in the Arctic, cooperatively and multilaterally.”
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