THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Last Friday, United Nations Ambassador Madeleine Albright appended her signature to the Law of the Sea Treaty, whose appropriate acronym is LOST. The treaty, which has been on-and-off for more than two decades, is ``on'' once again. Much has changed in the world in the past two decades, however, and the Law of the Sea today looks like a solution in search of a problem. The Senate should not ratify it.
LOST had its origins in the ``emerging nations'' movement of the 1960s and 1970s, before the term ``Third World'' had become a colloquial synonym for socialist failure and decay. The kleptocrats of Africa, Asia and Latin America saw an opportunity to seize a big portion of the wealth of the sea by labeling it ``the common heritage of mankind.'' President Richard Nixon, donning his international law/statesman's mantle, signed on in 1973, and the drafting process began.
Nearly a decade later, President Reagan examined the finished product and said ``no deal.'' While much of the treaty merely codifies what is already accepted as settled maritime law, the most contentious provisions involved deep-sea mining. The original treaty established an international authority to regulate private activity in this area, as well as something called the ``Enterprise,'' which was to mine the resources of the sea floor.
The United States was guaranteed no representation in the running of the authority and was, not surprisingly, supposed to subsidize the Enterprise and share technology with the Third World. Following our lead, no other major industrialized nation would ratify LOST.
In the 12 years since, communism has fallen and the moral and economic bankruptcy of Third World economics has become evident to all. The treaty has effectively been a dead letter, forgotten by almost everyone except a few diplomats at the State Department.
So why resurrect it? There appears to be no better answer than the fact diplomats simply love signing treaties. The Clinton administration claims to have ``resolved'' the problems the Reagan administration listed, but in fact, an unacceptable treaty is now merely a bad one. The U.S., for instance, is now guaranteed a seat on the authority, but has no veto. Land-based mineral developers - who are unlikely to have much interest in helping seabed mining - will have guaranteed representation on the council.
The world has not been noticeably worse off in the past 20 years because it did not have a Law of the Sea Treaty. Established maritime law, backed by the muscle of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, seems the best guarantee of law and order on the high seas.
KEYWORDS: LAW OF THE SEA TREATY
by CNB