Washington’s failure to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention puts the US military at increasing risk of confrontation with rising powers like China, US officials said on Wednesday as US President Barack Obama’s administration began a new push to join the 30-year-old treaty.
Senior US defense officials told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that without the treaty, the US military is forced to base rights of navigation around the globe on customary international law, or long-standing practice, which is subject to differing interpretations.
“If we do not ratify over time, what would happen is that we put ourselves at risk of confrontation with others who are interpreting customary international law to their own benefit,” US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey said.
“If we are not a party to this treaty and can’t deal with it at the [negotiating] table, then we have to deal with it at sea with our naval power,” US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. “And once that happens, you clearly increase the risk of confrontation.”
The 1982 treaty, which has been ratified by more than 160 countries, establishes 12-nautical-mile (22km) territorial seas around coastal countries, but ensures rights of navigation and overflight by other states. Twice in the past decade the treaty was voted out of committee, but never made it to a vote by the full US senate.
Opponents of the treaty are concerned it would cede US sovereignty to an international organization that would have the power to collect royalties on oil and mineral exploitation and use the funds to help poorer countries.
Panetta and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the panel the convention would bring huge economic and military benefits to the country. However, the issue quickly ran into the same objections that have stymied its passage since the mid-1990s.
“My problem is with sovereignty,” US Senator Jim Risch said, flipping through the pages of the treaty. “There’s 288 pages here, and as you read it, there’s some good stuff in here, but if we have to give up one scintilla of sovereignty that this country has fought, has bled for ... I can’t vote for it.”
Proponents say the benefits far outweigh any drawbacks, citing support by groups as diverse as the US Chamber of Commerce, Greenpeace, members of the oil and gas industry, top US military officials and recent Republican and Democratic administrations.
The accord creates 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones that give coastal states rights of development and exploitation of natural resources, but protect the ability of other countries to navigate, overfly and lay communications cables across the regions.
The treaty also grants countries rights to continental shelf regions beyond the 200 mile economic zones.
Because of its extensive coastal regions, the US stands to benefit more than other countries by joining the treaty, proponents say. It would extend US sovereignty to vast areas of the ocean, while putting the military’s worldwide rights of navigation on firmer legal footing.
Lawmakers and defense officials said the treaty would strengthen the military’s hand in dealing with growing powers like China and Russia and others that have joined the convention and are seeking to establish claims in the Pacific and Arctic.
“China and other countries are staking out illegal claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere,” US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry said.
“Becoming a party to the treaty would give an immediate boost to US credibility as we push back against excessive maritime claims and illegal restrictions on our warships or commercial vessels,” he said.
China claims rights over most of the South China Sea, which has led to confrontations with the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries bordering the waterway.
The US military has had repeated run-ins in the region with Chinese vessels and aircraft asserting their sovereignty, including a midair collision in 2001 that killed a Chinese jet pilot and forced a US Navy reconnaissance plane to make an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS