Headline June 19th, 2012 / Ocean Floor: The New Frontier

"Ocean Floor: The New Frontier"

Meanwhile, the U.S. treads a fine line, determined to have it both ways. J Bellinger State Deparment's chief counsel, in 2007, summed up American desires, '' The other misconception is that signing UNCLOS would a vast giveaway of American Soverignty to the U.N. 

The Commission on the limits of the Continental Shelf is not a U.N. agency, and ratifying the treaty would, in fact, would give the U.S. its biggest increase in territory since the Louisiana Purchase. Three sonic-probing missions by the Coast Guard Cutter Healy have determined that America's Arctic Shelf could potentially be the size of three California's, and could extend 600 miles further out than the 200 mile limit. 

But our extended shelf needs international blessing, because no bank will be willing to put money into oil drilling ventures in such legally murky waters.'' So, the US claims 200 miles of its Shelf by 'customary law' citing UNCLOS, which it hasn't ratified- but it won't acknowledge Canada's claim that its North west passage is an internal waterway, even though it threads through thousands of islands in the Canadian Arctic. 

The American position is that it's an International strait, which is defined as a waterway that connects high seas or E.E.Z's. At stake is the right of 'transit passage.' 'Foreign submarines are permitted to remain submerged in a strait, but they have to come to he surface in an internal waterway, and there are a hundred straits in the world, so the Department of Defense regards the guarantee of free passage to naval and commercial vessels as the crown jewel of the Law of the Sea Convention,' contends Bellinger. 

''In 200 we inherited 100 or so treaties that had not been ratified from the Clinton Administration.'' 

And the truth is that, basically, the U.S. doesn't ratify anything that cramps its style. Haha! It battled the Kyoto Protocal, which Russia has, but then Russia doesn't recognize the human contribution to global warming. The problem with UNCLOS was that the deep seabed part, Part XI, was flawed. 

The landlocked countries, feeling left out of the original treaty, had eked out an income distribution and mandatory tech transfer clause. If the big countries can go out and mine in the deep seabed, they should transfer the technology to the less developed countries and share the profits with landlocked ones. President Reagan refused to sign the treaty because he thought this section was too socialistic. Haha! 

So dear readers, stay adventurous for the next post and never miss it. And thanks to !WOW! and your ever growing support from the world over'. 

Good Night And God Bless!

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