Contrary to Mr. DeBose's assertion, President Reagan opposed the LOS Convention on 1982 because of a short and specific list of problems that dealt with the deep seabed mining regime. He did not object to the provisions on navigation, coastal state control of resource development, marine scientific research, pollution or dispute settlement, though some current opponents seem to wish that he had. President Reagan agreed that the non-seabeds provisions were in the interest of the US - that is why he approved the instructions to the delegation that addressed only the seabeds provisions. President Reagan knew what he was doing, as did the people who eventually succeeded in fulfilling the instructions he initially set out for an acceptable convention.

More than anything else, the LOS Convention is a coastal states rights convention and the United States, with one of the longest coastlines in the world, stands to benefit more than almost any other country. All the more so because freedom of navigation and sovereign immunity of our warships are protected.

Mr. Gilbert, who Mr. DeBose quotes, apparently read an earlier and incomplete version of the LOS Convention and did not read the binding international agreement that in 1994 modified how the Convention will, and is, applied with regard to seabed mining. In fact, every one of President Reagan's objections was met in full. That is why all the other seabed mining states that had joined the US in not ratifying the original convention are now parties to the Convention as modified by the "Reagan" Agreement on Implementation. It is also worth correcting both Mr. Gilbert and Mr. DeBose by noting that the only role the Convention gives to the United Nations is to assign the Secretary-General the rather humble duty of a clerk who collects and files the list of parties to the Convention and the names of experts submitted by states to aid in the implementation of the Convention. If one objects to the United Nations, then they should take heart that the negotiators gave it no substantive role in any aspect of the Convention.

There are people around who made up their mind to oppose the LOS Convention in the early 1980s when President Reagan filed his objections. But they are behind the times with their objections when they fail to accept that the Agreement on Implementation resolved all the objections according to the guidance Reagan laid down in 19882 and 1983. They would do well to emulate President Reagan, who was a man who knew that when you win the game it is time to smile and collect your chips.

First it was the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty, then it was the Panama Canal treaty, then it was the ozone-layer Montreal protocol, and now it's the crusade against the UN convention on the Law of the Sea. The dead-enders seem to need something to fulminate about.

One thing that doesn't seem to have registered, however, is that the Law of the Sea is already in force, whether or not the US ratifies it (the US signed it in 1994). The rules on fishery protection, maritime pollution, territorial waters, coastal states' economic zones, and naval rights of passage are already part of international law; 155 countries have ratified and enforce it. Certainly, as a non-party to the Law of the Sea the US is presumably free to enforce its own rules on use of its own territorial waters, but the US Navy is not worried about being able to sail alongside the US coast -- it wants the right to sail peacefully and unmolested through the straits of Malacca and Hormuz (which adherents to the Convention guarantee). US energy companies are concerned about access to other countries' coastal shelf. And so on.

Of course, when we stand apart from the Convention we don't sully ourselves by sitting at the table with the unsavory likes of Russia, Canada, and Norway as they present their claims to parts of the Arctic seabed for peaceful resolution under the Law of the Sea. Hey, we're the USA, we can send in the Navy and push the pygmies aside. Now there's a big win for Americanism, isn't it.

Haven't we learned something about this American-exceptionalism bragadaccio from these guys' last crusade -- into Iraq?

Only thing between free people and Gore type globalism is the right to bear arms.
Bush is selling out this Nation,we'll soon be a Mexican Province with a Muslim radical factor tossed in. A civil war in the States is un-avoidable.

Get a life! Anything associated with the UN cannot be good for the U.S. or any other country that is a democracy.

So, what if all the other nations who are in Law of the Sea get together and decide to deal the US out of play because we're not members of the association. Are we then going to go to war with Canada to assert our rights? As for the rest of it, I for one LIKE the idea of someone regulating submarine deployments under the sea, and potentially sharing the costs with the US navy to regulate sea lanes. There are some UN agencies that work pretty well, and this could be one if we join it instead of acting like some kind of rogue state. In the North, all the nations involved except for Russia are democracies. What better way to keep an eye on Russia than to involve it in an organzation with other democracies like Canada, Britain and Norway that we can trust?