Last month at the Arctic Ocean Conference (AOC) in Ilulissat,
Greenland, high-level diplomats from the United States and the
other four nations that border the Arctic region--Canada, Denmark,
Norway, and Russia--met to discuss territorial claims regarding the
Arctic Circle. At the conclusion of the meeting, the five countries
issued a joint statement declaring that, "[b]y virtue of their
sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in large areas of
the Arctic Ocean," each nation was in a unique position to address
the exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic.
The AOC was conceived in response to controversial actions
undertaken by the Russian Federation. In August 2007, one of
Russia's deep-water submersibles planted a flag on the sea floor
beneath the North Pole. Several U.S. politicians and media outlets
seized on the Russian stunt as an opportunity to push for Senate
ratification of the contentious United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea (LOST). They adopted the mantra that the United
States, if it fails to ratify LOST, "will not have a seat at the
table" to resolve territorial claims such as those in dispute in
the Arctic. For example:
- Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), at a September 27, 2007, Senate
Foreign Relations Committee hearing regarding LOST, lamented that
"Russia is already making excessive claims in the Arctic. Until we
become a party to the Convention, we will be in a weakened position
to protect our national interests in these discussions."
- Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, at that same
hearing, echoed Senator Lugar's sentiment: "Setting aside its
recent flag planting...Russia's continuing data collection in the
Arctic reflects its commitment to maximizing its sovereign rights
under the Convention over energy resources in that region.
Currently, as a non-party, the United States is not in a position
to maximize its sovereign rights in the Arctic or elsewhere. We do
not have access to the [U.N.] Commission [on the Limits of the
Continental Shelf]'s procedures for according international
recognition and legal certainty to our extended shelf."
- In October 2007, The New York Times, after dismissing
opponents of LOST as "cranky right-wingers," editorialized that
"[t]he steady retreat of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean...has
touched off a scramble among nations to determine who owns what on
the ocean floor. Unless the United States ratifies the treaty, it
will not have a seat at the table when it comes time to sort out
- A March 2008 New York Times editorial repeated the "seat
at the table" theme: "[President Bush] must keep the pressure on
Congress to approve, finally, the Law of the Sea. Without that
approval, the United States will have no voice when decisions are
made about rights of passage, exploring the ocean floor and
- An August 2007 editorial in The Christian Science
Monitor opined that the United States "may not have a good seat
at the table to decide [the Arctic's] future" because it is not a
party to LOST.
Senator Lugar, Ambassador Negroponte, and The New York
Times are merely repeating an argument previously asserted by
the White House. For example, in May 2007, President Bush issued a
statement on "advancing U.S. interests in the world's oceans" that
declared: "I urge the Senate to act favorably on U.S. accession to
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea during this
session of Congress.... [I]t will give the United States a seat at
the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are
debated and interpreted."
However, the United States was still invited to and attended the
AOC despite the fact that it is not a party to LOST. Such active
participation in the debate over Arctic territorial claims
disproves any contentions that the United States' "seat at the
table" is contingent upon its ratification of LOST.
A Valid Assertion of Rights
By attending the Ilulissat conference, the United States acted
as an independent, sovereign nation should act. The U.S. has
interests in the Arctic that are worthy of protection, and
meeting with other interested nations in a multilateral setting was
the proper protocol for securing such interests.
Yet even if the government of Denmark had decided not to invite
the United States to the Ilulissat meeting--thereby depriving it of
a "seat at the table"--U.S. interests would not have been negated.
Denmark, Russia, Canada, Norway, or any other nations are unable to
assert credible claims on U.S. territory in the Arctic or anywhere
else in the world. Indeed, the United States secured its rights to
the resources on its continental shelf when, in Presidential
Proclamation No. 2667, President Harry S. Truman declared:
I, HARRY S. TRUMAN, President of the United States of America,
do hereby proclaim the following policy of the United States of
America with respect to the natural resources of the subsoil and
sea bed of the continental shelf.
Having concern for the urgency of conserving and prudently
utilizing its natural resources, the Government of the United
States regards the natural resources of the subsoil and sea bed of
the continental shelf beneath the high seas but contiguous to the
coasts of the United States as appertaining to the United States,
subject to its jurisdiction and control.
In making this declaration, President Truman ensured that any
crude oil, natural gas, minerals, and any other resources
discovered beneath the U.S. continental shelf were the property of
the United States. Such resources belong to the United States
because fate or Providence placed them beneath the U.S. continental
shelf; the matter was no longer open to debate.
A Sovereign and Independent Nation
President Truman, acting as the leader of a sovereign and
independent nation--and without the permission of the United
Nations or the "international community"--did not believe that the
U.S. needed to be party to an international treaty such as LOST
before he declared U.S. rights over its own resources. Rather, the
only "seat at the table" President Truman required when he made
Presidential Proclamation No. 2667 was the chair behind his desk in
the Oval Office.
The "seat at the table" argument has been thoroughly debunked by
U.S. participation in the Arctic Ocean Conference. Membership in an
international treaty is clearly not required to secure and protect
sovereign rights to a nation's own territory, whether such land is
located in the Arctic or anywhere else in the world.
The United States should continue to behave in the international
arena as a sovereign and independent nation and not as a country
that looks to the United Nations or the "international community"
to determine its own rights.
Steven Groves is Bernard
and Barbara Lomas Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for
Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis
Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage
John D. Negroponte, "The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,"
written testimony before Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S.
Senate, September 27, 2007, at http://www.state.gov/s/d/2007/92921.htm
(June 13, 2008).
Editorial, "Twenty-Five Years and Counting," The New York
Times, October 31, 2007, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/opinion/31
wed3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (June 13, 2008). A previous
New York Times editorial described opponents of LOST as "a
tiny but noisy group of xenophobic activists." Editorial, "Rescuing
the Law of the Sea," The New York Times, August 22, 2004, at
9C07E1D6163EF931A1575BC0A9629C8B63 (June 13, 2008).
the forthcoming Heritage Foundation Backgrounder by Ariel
Cohen, Ph.D., regarding U.S. Arctic policy.
Presidential Proclamation No. 2667, "Policy of the United States
with Respect to the Natural Resources of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of
the Continental Shelf," September 28, 1945, at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12332
(June 13, 2008). Subsequent legislation further defined the U.S.
continental shelf; see, for example, the Outer Continental Shelf
Lands Act of 1953, 43 U.S.C. § 1331.