Administration pushes dangerous law of the sea treaty.President Bush startled star·tle v. star·tled, star·tling, star·tles v.tr. 1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start. 2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. conservatives in his own party in 2005 with his support for U.S. ratification of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). The Republican rank-and-file has adamantly opposed this effort to give the UN regulatory and taxing powers over all the world's oceans and territorial seas A belt of ocean space adjacent to and measured from the coastal state's baseline to a maximum width of 12 nm. Throughout the vertical and horizontal planes of the territorial sea, the coastal state exercises sovereign jurisdiction, subject to the right of innocent passage of vessels on since President Reagan torpedoed U.S. participation in the LOST scheme in the 1980s. Besides granting unaccountable UN bureaucrats power over navigation, marine life, fisheries fisheries. From earliest times and in practically all countries, fisheries have been of industrial and commercial importance. In the large N Atlantic fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, European and North American fishing fleets have long , and minerals, LOST would provide the UN with enormous revenues, potentially in the hundreds of billions of dollars. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have urged the Senate to ratify this UN convention. Secretary Rice will lead a delegation to Ilulissat, Greenland, for a conference on Arctic territorial claims on May 27-29. The five-nation conference, which is to include representatives from the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , Canada, Russia, Denmark, and Norway, will hold discussions on territorial claims in the Arctic Under international law, no country currently owns the North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the United States (via Alaska), Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland), are limited to a 200 nautical mile (370km) economic Ocean. The Greenland conference is expected to signal a new push in the Senate for ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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