Locklear Backs Law of the Sea Treaty

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – The Law of the Sea Convention is one avenue toward peacefully resolving competing maritime claims that could otherwise lead to conflict, the leader of U.S. Pacific Command said here today.

Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III spoke to Pentagon reporters following his testimony yesterday as part of a military panel addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Law of the Sea Convention.

The United Nations treaty opened for signature in December 1982 and took effect in November 1994, after 60 countries had signed. The United States has not ratified the treaty, but the nation’s military leaders have in recent months urged U.S. accession to the agreement.

Locklear told the committee yesterday the convention “is essential to locking in a stable, legal framework for the maritime domain that is favorable to our national interest and preserves our access to this critical region.”

As a Pacific power, the United States has defended freedom, enabled prosperity and protected peace in the region for more than six decades, and it must continue to lead security efforts, the admiral said in testimony.

He told senators, “The convention specifically codifies the rights, the freedoms and the uses of the sea that are critical for our forces to transit through and operate in the waters of the Asia-Pacific region.”

Population and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific make competing maritime claims both more numerous and more contentious, he said.

“Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the South China Sea, where claimants have asserted broad territorial and sovereignty rights over land features, sea space and resources in the area,” Locklear noted.

“The convention is an important component of a rules-based approach that encourages peaceful resolution of these maritime disputes,” he said in testimony. “Moreover, the convention codifies an effective balance of coastal state and maritime state rights, a stable legal framework that we help to negotiate that is favorable to our interests and that we should leverage as a check on states that attempt to assert excessive maritime claims.”

Because the United States is not a party to the convention, he said, “Our challenges are less credible than they might otherwise be.”

Joining the convention would place the United States “in a much stronger position to demand adherence to the rules contained in it -- rules that we have been protecting from the outside since the '80s and before,” he said.

Locklear told reporters today the convention and “customary law” set standards for military vessels’ passage through territorial waters, archipelagos and major straits.

“There are a number of countries in the world -- I think China being one of them -- who from our perspective place excessive claims and excessive restrictions that are not consistent with international [law] and aren't consistent with Law of the Sea,” he added.

Those restrictions, if added together and enacted, would limit international use of roughly a third of the world’s ocean area, Locklear said, and would affect every major strait and every “sea line of communication” -- the primary maritime trade, logistics and naval routes between ports.

All nations concerned with shipping access will be “further at risk if these excessive claims aren't resolved,” the admiral said.

The Law of the Sea Convention could form the basis for an international forum allowing countries to express competing claims, he noted.

“Then there will have to be some compromise,” he added, “because you can't just have continually competing claims that end up causing miscalculation at some point in time, which would lead us to conflict.”

Locklear said there are enough maritime resources “for everybody in the world,” and competing claims should be resolved peacefully.

Responding to a question on U.S.-China military relations, the PACOM commander said he has been encouraged by the receptiveness he has seen from his Chinese counterparts.

“I look forward to continuing our dialogue and to doing some visits,” he added. “I plan to visit [China] within the next several weeks, at their invitation.”

That visit will involve discussions about “military claims and all of the other issues that surround that,” he said.

A productive partnership between the two nations is “very important” to Asia-Pacific security, the admiral said.

“I think the good news is that … we're in a position in the coming months and years to continue to have a productive dialogue,” he added.

Winnefeld: Time for U.S. to Join Law of Sea Convention

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – Accession to the longstanding United Nations Law of the Sea Convention will have a positive impact on U.S. operations across the maritime domain, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here today.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Navy Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr. called himself a career sailor and former combatant commander who has come to his own judgment on the value for the United States of the treaty’s legal framework governing uses of the oceans.

Winnefeld appeared before the panel with five of the nation’s top military officers.

It is “a privilege to appear alongside another generation of military leaders,” he said, “as we join in sharing the view that now is the time for the United States to join the Law of the Sea Convention.”

The treaty opened for signature in December 1982 and became effective in November 1994, after 60 countries had signed. Today, 162 parties -- including most close U.S. allies -- have ratified the Law of the Sea Convention.

“The convention improves on previous agreements, including the 1958 Geneva Convention,” Winnefeld said.

The treaty will protect U.S. access to the maritime domain, fortify U.S. credibility as the world's leading naval power, the admiral added, and will allow the United States to bring to bear the full force of its influence on maritime disputes.

“In short,” he said, “it preserves what we have and it gives us yet another tool to engage any nation that would threaten our maritime interests.”

But not everyone agrees that the treaty will benefit the United States, Winnefeld acknowledged, adding that defense officials take these concerns seriously.

“Some say that joining the convention would result in a loss of sovereignty for the United States. I believe just the opposite to be true,” the admiral said. “Some would say … that joining the convention will open U.S. Navy operations to the jurisdiction of international courts. We know this is not true.”

In 2007, the Senate proposed what it called “declarations and understandings” to the treaty that specifically express the right to exempt military activities from the convention, Winnefeld said. “Many other nations that have acceded [or ratified the treaty] have already exempted their military activities from the treaty without dispute,” he noted.

Some believe the convention would require the United States to surrender its sovereignty over warships and other military vessels, the admiral said.

“I can assure you that we will not let this happen and the convention does not require it,” he told the Senate panel. “If anything, it further protects our sovereignty in this regard well before we would have to resort to any use of force.”

Winnefeld added that joining the convention will protect the United States from “ongoing and persistent efforts on the part of a number of nations, including those with growing economic and military power, to advance their national laws and set precedents that could restrict our maritime activities, particularly within the bounds of their exclusive economic zones.”

The term “lawfare” describes such efforts to erode the protections of customary international law, he said.

“It's a trend that's real and pressing and that could place your Navy at legal disadvantage unless we join the convention,” the admiral said. “And the nations that would challenge us in this and other ways are, frankly, delighted that we are not a party to the convention.”

Winnefeld told the senators that along with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he finds it awkward to suggest that other nations should follow rules to which the United States has not yet agreed. Ratifying the treaty will give the United States the ability to influence key decisions that could affect the nation’s sovereign rights and those of its partners and friends in the Arctic and elsewhere, he said. “This grows more important each day,” he added.

The real question, Winnefeld said, is whether the United States will choose to lead in the maritime environment from the inside or follow from the outside.

U.S. military leaders over two decades have studied the problem closely and arrived at the same conclusion, Winnefeld said: “that ratification is in our best interests.”

“I join these officers, including every chairman of the Joint Chiefs since 1994, in giving my support to the Law of the Sea Convention and in asking for your advice and consent,” he said.

Defense, State Leaders Urge Senate to Ratify Law of the Sea Treaty

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2012 – In the strongest terms possible, defense and diplomatic leaders urged the Senate today to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta along with Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All three urged the committee to approve the treaty.

“I strongly believe that accession to this treaty is absolutely essential, not only to our economic interests, our diplomatic interests, but I’m here to say that it is extremely important to our national security interests as well,” Panetta told the Senate panel. “I join a lot of the military voices of the past and present that have spoken so strongly in support of this treaty.”

The treaty, which came into force in 1994, has been waiting for Senate ratification ever since.

Panetta stressed that acceding to the treaty would help maintain the United States as a global naval power. “If we’re going to continue to assert our role as a maritime power, it’s essential that we accede to this important convention,” he told the panel.

“We believe that it is imperative to act now,” Clinton said. “No country is better served by this convention than the United States. As the world’s foremost maritime power, we benefit from the convention’s favorable freedom of navigation provisions. As the country with the world's second-longest coastline, we benefit from its provisions on offshore natural resources.”

A total of 161 countries have approved the treaty. “We’re the only industrial power that has failed to do that,” Panetta said. “And as a result, we don't have a seat at the table.”

Not having a seat means the U.S. is not represented and U.S. claims are not defended. It means being unable to influence nations who are at the table, Panetta said.

Ratifying the treaty, “would ensure that our rights are not whittled away by the excessive claims and erroneous interpretations of others,” Panetta said. “It would give us the power and authority to support and promote the peaceful resolution of disputes within a rules-based order.”

The treaty would also secure U.S. navigational freedoms and global access for military and commercial ships, aircraft and undersea fiber-optic cables.

Panetta suggested the new defense strategy almost demands accession to the Law of the Sea Treaty. “We at the Defense Department have gone through an effort to develop a defense strategy for the future, a defense strategy not only for now, but into the future as well,” the secretary said. “And it emphasizes the strategically vital arc that extends from the western Pacific and eastern Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia on to the Middle East.”

By not ratifying the treaty, the United States undercuts its credibility in that crucial arc. “We’re pushing, for example, for a rules-based order in the region and the peaceful resolution of maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, in the Straits of Hormuz and elsewhere,” Panetta said. “How can we argue that other nations must abide by international rules when we haven’t joined the very treaty that codifies those rules?”

Dempsey hammered home this point, noting that joining the Law of the Sea Convention would strengthen America’s ability to apply sea power. From his standpoint, the treaty codifies the navigational rights and freedoms necessary to project and sustain U.S. military forces. These include the right of transit through international straits, the right to exercise high seas freedoms in foreign exclusive economic zones, and the right of innocent passage through foreign territorial seas.

“And, it reinforces the sovereign immunity of our warships as they conduct operations,” Dempsey said.

Right now, the United States exercises these rights by sailing into these waters or flying over them. “This plays into the hands of foreign states that seek to bend customary law to restrict movement on the oceans,” the chairman said. “And, it puts our warships and aircraft ‘on point’ to constantly challenge claims.”

The United States will defend its interests on the seas, the chairman said.

“But, the force of arms does not have to be -- and should not be -- our only national security instrument,” he said. “Joining the convention would provide us another way to stave off conflict with less risk of escalation.”

Dempsey Urges Ratification of Law of the Sea Convention

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – Ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention is the right thing to do for American national security, the U.S. military’s highest-ranking officer said here today.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Pew Charitable Trusts gathering on the treaty that he joins each chairman since the document was signed in 1994 to urge the Senate to ratify it.

Republican and Democratic administrations have both urged approval. And, Dempsey maintains, the treaty is good for American military rights.

“It codifies navigational rights and freedoms essential for our global mobility,” he said. “It helps sustain our combat forces in the field.”

The treaty also guarantees the right of innocent passage through foreign territorial seas, the right of transit passage through international straits and the right to exercise high seas freedoms in foreign exclusive economic zones — all without permission or prior notice.

In addition, the treaty also affirms the sovereign immunity of U.S. warships and other public vessels. “And it gives us the framework to counter excessive claims by states seeking to illegally restrict movement of vessels and aircraft,” Dempsey said. “These are all rights and capabilities that we want and that we need. In fact, they are of our own making. We negotiated them into the convention to advance our national security interests.”

The United States could, of course, not ratify the treaty and depend on the same strategy an infant republic used more than 200 years ago, the chairman said. “At that time, we commissioned the Navy’s first ships to safeguard our seaborne merchants against the Barbary pirates,” he said.

The force of arms should not be America’s only national security instrument, the chairman said, and the Law of the Sea Convention provides an additional way to navigate an increasingly complex international security environment.

“Ratification now represents an unprecedented opportunity,” the chairman said. “The convention offers an opportunity to exercise global security leadership.”

More than 160 nations are now a party to the convention. “Even so, the world looks to us for leadership,” he said. “We have the world’s largest and most capable navy, largest economy, and the largest exclusive economic zone. We will become the leader within the convention as soon as we enter it. And that’s never been more important.”

Dempsey said that on, over and under the oceans, nations are making competing claims or posturing themselves to restrict the movement of others, and these actions affect the United States, its allies and friends.

“As a party to the convention, we can help resolve conflicts, strengthen alliances and foster innovative partnerships,” he said. “We have never been better poised – or more welcomed – to lead a global security order benefiting all peaceful nations.”

The convention secures legitimate global freedom of access for the U.S. armed forces, Dempsey told the audience. “Today, we rely on customary international law and assert it through physical presence – warships and aircraft transiting and challenging illegal restrictions,” he said. “Some say this alone is sufficient.”

But this works against U.S. rights in that nations will continue to try and bend customary law to restrict movement on the ocean, he said, and it puts U.S. ships, subs, aircraft and personnel at risk to continually challenge these claims.

“We are strong enough for this role. We can and will continue to defend our interests, and we’ll do that with force when necessary,” Dempsey said. “But we can also be smart. We can leverage law to mitigate the need for physical assertion. Under the Law of the Sea Convention, we can be both strong and smart.”

Ratifying the convention also strengthens the U.S. position in Asia, the chairman said.

Finally, Dempsey said, joining the Law of the Sea Convention will strengthen America’s strategic position in Asia. “The Western Pacific is a mosaic of competing claims for territory and resources,” the chairman said. “This is a critical region where, as a Pacific nation, our security and economic prosperity are inextricably linked.”

The United States wants to mitigate any conflict in the Pacific, Dempsey said. “The convention gives us another tool to effectively resolve conflicts at every level,” he added. “It provides a common language, and therefore a better opportunity, to settle disputes with cooperation instead of cannon fire.”