On October 31st, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send the UN Law of the Sea Convention treaty for ratification to the full Senate. While this is a positive step, supported by an not-too-typical coalition of environmentalists and industry-types, it is important to remember that an international treaty is only as good as the results it gets, not how it looks on paper.
The Convention on Law of the Sea is a United Nations treaty that governs issues such as navigation, coastal border issues, and seabed mining. And it’s that last issue that we should pay attention to.
As pointed out in a Bloomberg news piece in the Seattle Times, there are underlying reasons, beyond actually wanting to protect the oceans, why the US is finally interested in signing on (a mere 25 years after the Convention was established).
Global warming has added urgency to how the ocean’s riches are divided. The shrinking of sea ice due to global climate change has intensified the fight among countries including Russia and Denmark for rights to mineral deposits on the Arctic Ocean seabed.
It’s the chase for riches at the bottom of the sea. Gold, silver, nickel and copper. A chase for riches that have resulted in grave environmental damage on terrestrial environments, and one that if past performance is any indicator of future behavior will spell trouble for the oceans.
While the Convention on the Law of the Sea provides an opportunity for international cooperation to regulate environmental damage, we shouldn’t be lulled into complacency that suddenly the oceans will be in better shape and under better stewardship.
For several years, sea turtle advocates (of which I was one) pressed the Convention to create greater protections for the critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle, whose nesting populations has plummeted 90% in the last generation. These gentle giants are predicted to go extinct within the next generation unless adult mortality by industrial fishing is reversed.
The Law of the Sea Convention does not have the authority to make the needed changes. It can make a recommendation for the UN General Assembly, which can then make a recommendation to the responsible authorities. In the case of the leatherbacks, it was the Regional Fishery Management Organizations. The pressing urgency of the issue got watered down by compromise, and then the fishery organizations, which not too surprisingly represent industrial fishing interests, meandered through their processes and in the end only came up with recommendations to conduct scientific studies while allowing the longlines continue to ensnare leatherbacks. An urgent case was presented that leatherbacks could go extinct and, in essence, nothing changed.
Despite all this doomsaying, the US finally joining the Convention on the Law of the Sea is a positive step, but as is with any regulatory or governmental body, the citizens of the world will need to raise their voices so that those that represent them actually do so. If people concerned about the health of the oceans are actually involved, the Convention on the Law of the Sea could be a vehicle for greater ocean protection.
