A Dissertation on the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

The World's oceans cover approximately 70% of the Earth's surface, and as such play a major role in how our planet and how our society functions. They are a vast source of food and energy, as well as mineral and other resources and provide means for transportation around the globe. They provide vital environmental functions, for humanity, for the species that live in them, and for the Earth as a whole. Until relatively recently the rights to the use of these oceanic resources and functions have been relatively vague, with concepts such as freedom of the seas essentially declaring resources in our oceans to be essentially common property, belonging to no one and everyone at the same time. The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has helped specify the rights of coastal states to their maritime resources, as well as other rights and responsibilities. It is not perfect and has its fair share of problems, but by and large it is an improvement over previous conditions which left exploitation of the oceans open to all and without consequences for any malign actions.

Previous to UNCLOS there was a weaker, less official law, where a country's rights only extended 3 nautical miles from its shore, which was the distance a cannon shot can travel1. Essentially this allowed country's to control only that which they could defend with force. The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, known as UNCLOS, changed that. It is an agreement between 155 countries2 on the rights and responsibilities they have regarding their use of the world's oceans and their resources. It also helps protect these resources by setting environmental regulations. It began in 1956 with the first UN conference on the law of the sea and was the end product of 3 such conferences and the final product came into action in November, 19943. UNCLOS gives coastal countries a 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone, a 24 nautical mile Contiguous zone, and a 12 nautical mile territorial waters zone, extending out into the ocean from their land. As well as an area of internal waters that roughly extends from the land to the baseline (usually the low-water line). Within the Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, all resources are the property of the coastal nation. Within the Contiguous zone, the country can enact and enforce its own laws and regulations. Within the Territorial waters zone, foreign vessels cannot enter unless they are conducting "innocent passage". This means that they are allowed to enter this area only if they are essentially just passing through. Within its internal waters, foreign vessels have no right of passage what-so-ever. Rules from the zones extending out also cover the zones with which they overlap. States also have the right to harvest minerals and non-living materials from the sea floor out to continental shelf. Establishment of these zones and their regulations helped establish the rights of nations to minerals, traffic and jurisdiction. It was crucial in determining rights to fish stocks, undersea oil and mining, and helped countries enforce their own laws on issues such as illegal immigration.

There are many criticisms of this treaty and its implementation. It weakens a country's sovereignty by agreeing to follow outside rules and regulations as well as by having to submit to outside body's for certain regulations and other policies. It complicates some areas of national security4 at the same time. It requires countries to abandon their own environmental policies and adopt those of UNCLOS. UNCLOS may or may not be an improvement on a country's current environmental policies and could even produce an end result in over fishing in certain areas as a country must catch a mandated amount of fish or else the surplus is assigned to another nation5. This could devastate certain regions of their fish stocks and be seen as UN enforced over fishing. It also does not help very much when a stock of fish travels between one nation's EEZ and either another nation's EEZ or the open ocean. It also does not stop a fishing fleet from fishing just outside of a nation's EEZ without having to follow the regulations and laws of that country, as happened with the Spanish in the mid-nineties and resulted in the seizure of at least one Spanish fishing boat6. The ISA (International Seabed Authority) would also levy certain taxes and fees against commercial activities in certain areas of the sea bed. This would be a form of taxation without representation as citizens would be taxed in a round about way through government and business activities in these areas. These issues are pretty important and show that the treaty does have some very discouraging flaws to it.

There are, however, a large amount of positives to trade off with all of the criticisms of UNCLOS. It brings issues such as overfishing of certain stocks, environmental concerns, and sustainability of certain resource exploitation practices to a level or world attention with an international body to help reach a positive conclusion. Often these issues are local, regional, or at most involve half a dozen countries. UNCLOS gives attention to many of these issues on a global scale and can address them en masse rather than individual countries implementing individual answers. It also gives provides an international body to settle any disputes peacefully. Member nations can have their disputes settle by the ISA and/or the Law of the Sea Tribunal in a diplomatic and peaceful fashion, rather than having to result to other, less friendly means such as political gesturing and even gun boat diplomacy. It sets environmental regulations that are binding to signatories and cannot be ignored without legal consequences. These regulations are designed to preserve sustainability and to prevent pollution as well as protecting marine wildlife and other environmental factors, although they mainly focus on fish stocks7. For every problem it gives a coastal nation with its national security it also solves one, clarifying issues such as "innocent passage". It also privatizes what were once common resources, which theoretically should lead to less overexploitation of things such as fish stocks as the country that now "owns" them has a large stake in their long term viability and more control over said viability, as "ownership and control are key factors in the ...management of resources"8. This makes it easier for governments to manage certain resources, again fish stocks being a prime example, it would be very difficult for the Canadian government to place a moratorium on the fishing of the Atlantic Cod if Canada did not have any jurisdiction to do so and there were dozens of different nations competing for a share of the catch. The "ownership" of these resources and the rights to the areas given to a coastal nation by UNCLOS also gives them a degree of responsibility for maintaining these areas and ensuring any activities going on in them are being done so in an environmentally friendly fashion. A state will not tend to worry about environmental damage in areas it does not control, but once it has a stake in said areas it will look to preserve its interests. These are all vast improvements over what existed previously, mainly the oceans being considered common property and a nation's sovereignty being restricted to the 3 nautical mile "canon shot" rule.

The days of areas such as forests and oceans being considered common property are coming to a close, and UNCLOS is essentially just another body and policy that enforces this. It has its problems and critics, but it does widely enforce environmental regulations, it brings smaller regional issues to a global body, and will like prevent a "tragedy of the commons" from occurring in some areas of the ocean. For all its flaws, UNCLOS is a considerable improvement upon the lawless, unregulated conditions before it came into effect.

Citations

1) http://www.ppl.nl/100years/topics/sealaw/

2)http://www.un.org/Depts/los/reference_files/chronological_lists_of_ratifications.htm#The%20United%20Nations%20Convention%20on%20the%20Law%20of%20the%20Sea

3)http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_historical_perspective.htm

4) http://www.nationalcenter.org/2007/06/bush-administration-law-of-sea-treaty.html

5)http://www.nationalcenter.org/2007/06/bush-administration-law-of-sea-treaty.html

6) Maclean's March 20, 1995 available online at: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0010344

7) http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/8_1_1958_fishing.pdf

8) Mather, A.S. and Chapman, K Environmental Resources Pearson Education Ltd., Canada 1995 pg 36

Bibliography

Mather, A.S. and Chapman, K Environmental Resources Pearson Education Ltd., Canada 1995

National Center for Public Policy Research:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/2007/06/bush-administration-law-of-sea-treaty.html
Accessed March 3rd, 2008

United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea
http://www.un.org/depts/los/index.htm
Accessed March 3rd, 2008

Maclean's March 20, 1995 available online at: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0010344
Accessed March 3rd, 2008

The Peace Palace Library Centennial Exhibition
http://www.ppl.nl/100years/topics/sealaw/
Accessed March 3rd, 2008

International Law Commission on UNCLOS 1
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/8_1_1958_fishing.pdf
Accessed March 3rd, 2008