tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post6090829735624570002..comments2024-02-25T03:54:37.259-05:00Comments on Book Reviews by Rick Sincere: 'Ordering the Oceans: The Making of the Law of the Sea'Rick Sincerehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02430047101172614629noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3430057110297078719.post-67782824654321944392010-03-17T08:46:35.035-04:002010-03-17T08:46:35.035-04:00I certainly agree with your comments about the boo...I certainly agree with your comments about the book overhyping Canada's contribution to the negotiations. Their insertion of the 'production limit' into Part XI was one of the 'killer provisions' that kept the US from joining the convention, and it was a provision that whose only value was in domestic canadian politics. Even winning as much as they did, Canada did not join the Convention until 2003, nine years after the Convention came into force.<br /><br />That said, the 1994 Agreement on Implementation of Part XI" finally resolved the problems that the United States had with the 1982 Convention. No surprise since the consultations and negotiations leading to that document were based on President Reagan's six criteria for a Convention that he said he would support. <br /><br />Now we are in the position where the US is the only major power that isn't party to the Convention (I suppose Turkey might count as the next most significant non-party, and they are out because of a narrow dispute with Greece over access to the Aegean Sea). Our domestic ocean mining industry, which Reagan sought to save, collapsed as the home countries of foreign investors and partners joined the convention. Now there are 8 ocean mining groups working under the Convention (Germany, France, Japan, Russia, China, India, South Korea and a group of east european states) while the sole remaining US ocean mining firm waits for the US to join the Convention before it can move ahead.<br /><br />We are now in a spot where opponents of international engagement have rewritten history, claiming that Reagan's objections to the convention were not limited to Part XI - this in spite of the written record of Reagan's decisions and statements. Our ability to lock in the important provisions of the Convention as they are now has been blocked by ignorance and fear of engagement with the rest of the world. This needs to be rectified before practice under the Convention and laws based upon it are used to alter its interpretation or to justify its amendment in ways detrimental to the US.CaitlynAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13058746435233244686noreply@blogger.com