Source: https://www.heritage.org/node/12774/print-display
Timestamp: 2020-06-02 10:32:30
Document Index: 76636480

Matched Legal Cases: ['art. 2', 'art. 14', 'art. 14', 'art. 23', 'art. 19', '§ 513', '§ 513', 'art. 39', 'art. 52', 'art. 53', 'art. 53', 'art. 53', 'art. 53']

August 24, 2011 About an hour read Download Report
Part I establishes that the United States has successfully relied on the customary international law of the sea as the basis for its maritime rights and discusses how it protects those rights through the Freedom of Navigation Program.
Part II addresses the traditional freedoms of navigation and overflight on the high seas and “innocent passage” through territorial waters.
Part III addresses the navigational regimes of “transit passage” through international straits and “archipelagic sea-lanes passage,” including brief case studies of the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, and the archipelagic waters of Indonesia and the Philippines.
Part IV concludes that U.S. membership in UNCLOS is not essential to the U.S. Navy’s global mission. Nor is membership necessary to maintain the U.S.’s position as the dominant naval power in the world and the preeminent leader on international law of the sea and maritime matters. Rather than spending its time debating a convention that the United States has rejected for almost 30 years, Congress should focus on providing the Navy with the resources that it requires to face the current and future challenges on the world’s oceans.
Part I: Protecting U.S. Navigational Rights and Freedoms
The Continental Congress established the U.S. Navy on October 13, 1775, by enacting legislation to outfit two warships. Over the ensuing 236 years, the U.S. Navy has become the greatest maritime force in history. Yet proponents accept as an article of faith that U.S. accession to UNCLOS is essential to “guarantee” navigational rights and freedoms.[5]
Part II: Navigation on the High Seas and Through Territorial Waters
The law of the sea has its origins in the customary practice of nations spanning several centuries. A basic tenet of customary international law is that the high seas are free and open for navigation and commerce, and that coastal states may subject only a narrow margin [the territorial sea] to their own jurisdiction and control.
—U.S. Department of Defense (1993)[35]
One of the fundamental tenets in the international law of the sea is the right enjoyed by all ships of every state to innocent passage through another state’s territorial sea.
—U.S. Department of State (1992)[36]
Part III: Passage Through International Straits and Archipelagic Waters
Recent practice of states, supported by the broad consensus achieved at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, has effectively established as customary international law the concept and the basic rules of transit passage through international straits and sea-lanes passage through archipelagic waters.
—Restatement of the Law, Third, of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987)[65]
Part IV: Ensuring Continued U.S. Global Leadership on the Oceans
For more than 180 years and through two world wars, the U.S. Navy thrived, developing into a global maritime power, without the benefit of a written convention on the law of the sea. In 1958, the principles of high seas freedom and innocent passage through territorial waters were codified in the first round of law of the sea conventions. Between 1958 and 1982, the Navy continued to fulfill its mission on a global scale. UNCLOS was adopted in 1982, duplicating the navigational provisions of the 1958 conventions and “crystallizing” the concepts of transit passage and archipelagic sea-lanes passage. Since 1982, through the end of the Cold War and to the present day, the Navy continues to prosecute its mission as the world’s preeminent naval power.
Congress should work with the Department of Defense to provide the U.S. Navy with the assets it needs to maintain its preeminent position on the high seas.[148] Freedom of navigation and overflight, innocent passage through territorial waters, transit passage through international straits, and archipelagic sea-lanes passage are best guaranteed by a strong Navy, not by a signature on a treaty.
The United States should continue to advance its interests, including freedom of navigation, in the Arctic.[149] To the extent that the U.S. requires a “seat at the table” on Arctic issues, its prominent position on the Arctic Council serves that role. Nothing indicates that accession to UNCLOS would be a factor, much less a determinative one, in securing U.S. interests in the Arctic.[150]
The United States should address Chinese maritime ambitions and confront China’s aggression in the South China Sea by maintaining its strong forward posture in East Asia and supporting its allies in the region.[151] To that end, the U.S. may rely on the customary international law of the sea, as reflected in the UNCLOS navigational provisions, while continuing to challenge China’s excessive maritime claims through the Freedom of Navigation Program.
U.S. Navy Challenges to Excessive Maritime Claims, FY 1993–2010
In FY 1994–1999, a list of the U.S. Navy’s operational assertions under the Freedom of Navigation Program was appended to the Department of Defense’s Annual Report to the President and the Congress. The list of annual assertions for FY 2000–FY 2010 was posted on the Web site of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. In FY 2000–FY 2003, the Department of Defense did not specifically indicate the fiscal year in which each assertion was conducted.
2009: Notification required before foreign warships transit the Strait of Magellan or in proximity to the territorial sea
1995: Claimed security zone • Claimed territorial airspace beyond 12 nm
1993: Prior permission for warships to enter territorial sea
1993: Prior permission for warships to enter territorial sea • Excessive straight baselines
1997: Require state aircraft to comply with directions from air traffic control within flight information region
1993: Excessive straight baselines
1993: Claimed 200 nm territorial sea
1994: Prior notification for warships to enter territorial sea
1998: Claimed 200 nm territorial sea
1993: Prior notification for warships to enter territorial sea • Historic waters claim (Gulf of Mannar)
1999: Excessive straight baselines
1998: Excessive straight baselines • Historic bay claim (Ungwana Bay)
1997: Excessive straight baselines • Prior notification for warships to enter territorial sea
1998: Excessive restrictions on military activities in EEZ
1994: Excessive straight baselines • Recognizes only innocent passage, not transit passage, through international straits
1995: Excessive straight baselines • Prior permission for warships to enter territorial sea
1994: Excessive straight baselines • Claimed archipelagic waters as internal waters
1998: Claimed 35 nm territorial sea • Prior permission for warships to enter the territorial sea
2000–2003: Excessive straight baselines • Claimed 24 nm security zone
2009: Excessive territorial sea claim
1996: Excessive straight baselines • Claimed security zone
[46] Ibid., art. 2(1)–(4).
[54] Ibid., art. 14(4).
[55] Ibid., art. 14(6).
[56] Ibid., art. 23.
[59] Ibid., art. 19(2)(c), (d), and (j).
[62] Ibid., pp. 266–267.
[65] Restatement of the Law, Third, of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, § 513 cmt. j.
[68] Restatement of the Law, Third, of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, § 513 cmt. j.
[79] Ibid., art. 39(1)(c).
[107] Ibid., art. 52.
[108] Ibid., art. 53(9). While Article 53(9) refers only to “the competent international organization” as the proper venue, the IMO has been designated as such in practice.
[109] Ibid., art. 53(4).
[110] Ibid., art. 53(2).
[111] Ibid., art. 53(12).