Democrats Push Congress Bid To Ratify UNCLOS

A group of Democratic congressmen is renewing a legislative fight to push the United States to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an international agreement the country has long resisted despite helping to craft it, Justin Katz reported recently for Breaking Defense.

Photo Insert: Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., is one of the amendment’s sponsors.

An amendment for a “sense of Congress” asserting that it’s in the country’s best interest to formally ratify the treaty was included and passed by the House last weeknight in the America COMPETES Act, a bill aimed at boosting American manufacturers’ ability to compete with China. The lower chamber advanced the bill mostly along party lines.

The renewed push comes at a time when the Pentagon, and in particular the Navy, are focusing on countering China by asserting power in the Indo-Pacific.

“In order to equip the US to fully and credibly assert the rule of law in the maritime domain, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, it’s time for our nation to finally join 168 countries around the world and ratify UNCLOS,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., one of the amendment’s sponsors, said in a written statement following the House vote.

The amendment was also sponsored by Democratic Reps. Ami Bera, Calif., Rick Larsen, Wash., Elaine Luria, Va., Ed Case, Hawaii, and Dereck Kilmer, Wash. Courtney, among other lawmakers, have intermittently made pushes to have the agreement ratified for the past decade, but those efforts ultimately failed to simultaneously gain the necessary support by the sitting president and 67 senators.

UNCLOS is a 1982 treaty that formalizes well-known rules of navigation, governs the use of undersea resources, and provides mechanisms for resolving disputes between countries. Despite its large number of signatories and the fact the US participated in the original negotiations formulating the agreement, the US has never acceded to — or formally ratified — the treaty.

Proponents chiefly argue that ratifying the agreement would give the US more leverage in pressuring other nations to do the same. The US Navy and Coast Guard both already largely follow the rules of navigation the treaty lays out as a matter of service policy.

Proponents also argue that military leadership almost uniformly expresses support for ratification when asked about their positions during confirmation hearings for senior billets. Adm. Christopher Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the latest four-star officer to do as much.

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