Sec. 901. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
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It is the sense of the House of Representatives that— the United States Senate should give its advice and consent to the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted by the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea in December 1982 and entered into force in November 1994, to establish a treaty regime to govern activities on, over, and under the world’s oceans; UNCLOS builds on four 1958 Law of the Sea conventions to which the United States is a party, namely— the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone; the Convention on the High Seas; the Convention on the Continental Shelf; and the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas;
UNCLOS and an associated 1994 agreement relating to implementation of the treaty were transmitted to the Senate on October 6, 1994; in the absence of advice and consent from the Senate, the United States is not a party to UNCLOS nor to the associated 1994 agreement; becoming a party to UNCLOS would give the United States standing to participate in discussions relating to the treaty and thereby improve the ability of the United States to intervene as a full party in disputes relating to navigational rights and defend United States interpretations of the treaty’s provisions, including those relating to the rights of coastal states to regulate foreign military activities in their exclusive economic zones; becoming a party to the treaty would improve the ability of the United States to achieve the environmental, social, and economic purposes of supporting the implementation and enforcement of international fisheries agreements and the protection of highly migratory species under the Magnuson Stevens Act, the Shark Conservation Act, and the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act; and relying on customary international norms to defend United States interests or relying on other countries to assert claims on behalf of the United States at the Hague Convention is insufficient to defend and uphold United States sovereign rights and interests under UNCLOS.