Tag Archives: UNCLOS
Privatizing the sea: How private corps stole the sea from the commons
Since 1945, when the US unilaterally asserted ownership of the continental shelf and parts of the high seas around its shores, much of the ‘blue commons’ has been converted into private property. In 1982, UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) endorsed the biggest enclosure in history, granting countries exclusive economic zones (EEZs) that extended 200 nautical miles from their coastlines. This set in train procedures and institutional mechanisms that have expanded privatisation and financialisation to all parts of the marine economy. It also cemented neocolonialism, granting ex-imperial countries such as the US, France and the UK millions of square miles around lands far from their shores — their so-called ‘overseas territories’. >click to read< 09:18
UNCLOS: Senate ratification is optional?
I’ve always believed that UN treaties could not be implemented in the USA without Senate ratification? What’s up with this?
Apparently NOAA disagrees with waiting for US Senate ratification of the UNCLOS (aka the law of the sea treaty):
As a matter of national and economic security and international leadership, the U.S. follows the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. This law establishes claims of territorial waters and universal legal controls for the management of marine natural resources and the control of pollution.
