United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Preamble and Excerpts from Part XII

Summary: The United Nations describes its 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as “[p]ossibly the most significant legal instrument of this century” – “an unprecedented attempt by the international community to regulate all aspects of the resources of the sea and uses of the ocean, and thus bring a stable order to mankind's very source of life.” The convention was adopted in 1982 and entered into full force in 1994. As of January 2005, 147 nations had ratified it. Although the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has unanimously recommended ratification, the United States has yet to accede to the convention.

In 1992, the United Nations' Agenda 21 noted that more than half the world's population lived less than 40 miles from the coastline and that by 2020 the figure would be three quarters of the world's population. Principle 4 of the Rio Declaration, adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, states that “in order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.”

UNCLOS declares that States have both a general obligation to protect the marine environment and “the sovereign right to exploit their natural resources” under their own environmental policies. Acting individually or jointly, States must take “all measures consistent with this convention” to prevent marine pollution “from any source.”