Publisher's Synopsis
The United States remains the only noteworthy maritime nation and the only Arctic contiguous state not to ratify the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. While members of both major US parties (and each president since Bill Clinton) support US accession, a small minority of Republican senators have used procedural measures to prevent a full-Senate vote on ratification. Since this Spring the Obama administration has renewed the government's efforts to seek a ratification vote. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA), supported by the committee's ranking Republican member Richard Lugar, initiated a series of hearings to receive expert testimony from civilian and military defense and foreign policy leaders and from the US business community. Accession raises significant national security and economic issues - including access to strategic minerals. This issue of HRISQ brings together the expert analysis provided to date in the course of the Senate hearings.
