I know, some say that UNCLOS (as LOST is formally called) will help settle sea disputes that roil the waters of the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
But that is wrong. The treaty says nothing about resolving the territorial disputes that are out there. Indeed, LOST actually intensifies the territorial disputes by making control of the resources of larger areas of the sea contingent on owning even tiny bits of rock peaking above the waves.
Others say that we can't influence how the treaty is interpreted without belonging to the treaty.
This is nonsense. If the country with the most powerful Navy in the world and largest economy can't work through allies and lobby foes to let them know what is acceptable to us, why don't we just close up the State Department right now and save the money?
And ultimately, our freedom of navigation relies on a Navy powerful enough to defend freedom of navigation and not some piece of paper that China doesn't seem to think trumps their core interests in the region.
After all, why isn't LOST constraining Chinese claims against other LOST member states? Remember, we have no territory in dispute with China. So why should our membership matter in settling those disputes?
Another argument is that all those LOST provisions to resolve sea territorial disputes are out of our reach if we are outside the treaty.
I just read something interesting on that issue, regarding the Arctic Sea:
In 2008, the United States, Norway, Denmark, Canada and Russia met in Ilulissat, Greenland, and promised each other that in the event of overlaps in their submissions that they would follow the processes provided through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to peacefully and diplomatically work out any differences.
Huh. In this narrow area, we agreed to be bound by LOST provisions without agreeing to the treaty as a whole. I thought the glorious benefits of the treaty were lost to us. Apparently not.
Which makes the Arctic as a reason to ratify LOST rather misleading, no?
The treaty is not in our interests. We can influence the treaty from outside of the treaty and even selectively use the provisions when they are in our interest. Maybe we need some type of a law of the sea to defend navigation rights. But we do not need this LOST.
The Navy has defended our freedom of the seas for close to two and a half centuries without LOST. The Navy should keep doing that and not argue for some farcical aquatic ceremony to wield supreme navigational power.
