the world is rapidly changing but the
law is failing to keep pace
more specifically the ocean is changing
in fundamental ways and yet the law of
the sea remains virtually unheard in the
last 50 years this disconnect between
the actual world and the world assumed
by international law is especially
visible and worrisome in the case of sea
level rise it’s as if we built a fence
over a pool of quicksand it’s not going
to separate your yard from mine for very
long so what problems does this create
and what can we do about it
coastlines have always fluctuated
naturally through erosion and sediment
deposition they move but the amount of
coastal dynamism we’re currently
experiencing is unprecedented in modern
human history coastlines are moving both
inward towards the land and in many
places outward into the sea
they’re moving inward because the sea
levels are rising although there is some
local and regional variation everywhere
and in general the seas are rising there
are two basic causes for this melting
glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are
adding to the total amount of water in
the oceans while the ocean is also
absorbing heat from the atmosphere which
causes its volume to expand so as sea
levels rise coastlines retreat in word
but in many places they’re also moving
outward dredging which sucks up sand
from one area and deposits it elsewhere
onto a reef or a beach is a very mature
technology and it’s used every year by
the Army Corps of Engineers and others
to replenish and expand coastal areas
and it’s even being used in places like
the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea
to construct entirely new islands where
previously there were none
so coastlines are moving more than ever
and more frequently than ever and yet
international law assumes that they
always stay in the same place the law of
the sea treaty is the Mae
body of international law that governs
the ocean it determines who controls
which parts of the sea and which boats
can do what and where it’s often called
the constitution for the oceans and it’s
negotiation in the 1970s and 80s was a
really major international
accomplishment most significantly it
creates zones of national control 12
miles from the coastline is territorial
sea and 200 miles is exclusive economic
zone these areas give the coastal state
and by state I mean country privileged
access to resources like fish and fossil
fuels and it also allows coastal states
like the United States to set and
enforce the rules about which votes can
do what in these areas but the problem
is there are two parts of the law of the
sea treaty that assume that coastlines
stay in the same place the first
concerns what’s called the baseline it’s
the starting point from which you draw
these 12 and 200-mile claims and the
treaty says the baseline is at the
low-water mark as shown on official
charts produced by the coastal states
but the treaty is unclear about whether
once the baseline is drawn its permanent
frozen in time or if in contrast the
chart needs to be periodically updated
to reflect the new water low water line
and therefore the new baseline so in
other words the baseline might stay put
or it might change as the coastline
changes and if it does move with the
coastline then that means so too does
the outer edge of that 200-mile claim
and we might be in a situation where
areas are reverting from national
control to a high seas status that’s
open access kind of a free-for-all in
terms of resources the other area where
the treaty assumes the coastline stays
in the same place concerns the status of
Islands versus rocks a rock is
uninhabitable it has no economic life of
its own but it still gets to generate a
12-mile territorial sea an island gets
that
plus a 200-mile exclusive economic zone
so in general it’s better to have
Islands than rocks if you want to claim
more maritime territory but once again
the treaty is dangerously vague about
the precise standards that differentiate
iraq from an island and more importantly
it says nothing about whether iraq can
become an island or vice versa
the common issue here is change when the
ocean itself changes does the legal
status of islands or the coastline
change – the question may seem abstract
but it has very real consequences for a
majority of the Earth’s population what
happens legally as sea levels rise will
impact our ability to achieve peace
stability and sustainability in the
century to come there are two groups who
are especially concerned about the
status of Islands versus rocks those who
are losing their islands to the rising
seas and those who are building entirely
new islands on one hand small island
developing states are worried about
losing their land and their maritime
territory as the Seas encroach upon
those islands they often become
uninhabitable before they’re entirely
submerged because saltwater intrudes
into freshwater deposits and on to crop
lands and because these states are often
made up of vast and far-flung
archipelagos of hundreds even thousands
of islands if even one island is
reclassified as a rock it could mean the
loss of hundreds of thousands of square
miles of maritime territory on the other
hand there are states like China
building new islands in part because
they want to make new claims over
maritime territory for China this is a
matter of grand strategy of increasing
their influence and militarized control
in the South China Sea but for its
Southeast Asian neighbors who are
objecting to these claims it’s an issue
of resource scarcity and food security
because China is using this island
building to claim fisheries that were
previously open for access
by anyone who could get there in terms
of the coastline the issue concerns
situations where the 200-mile claims
overlap which is actually pretty common
in this case the most typical response
is to draw a line at the halfway point
between baselines but if the baseline
changes then so too does the halfway
point and this presents a situation
where some states see an opportunity to
claim new resources and throw out old
agreements where other states feel
pressure to maintain existing claims and
agreements and anytime there’s a
valuable resource along that halfway
point whether it be fish or sea bed
minerals fossil fuels these will become
subject to new rounds of resource
competition and even potentially
conflict finally in terms of how we
respond practically to sea level rise
our legal interpretation and influences
what we do so if a coastal state is
worried about losing maritime territory
as the coastline moves inward they will
harden that coastline to defend its
existing position they’ll put cement on
the sand and build sea walls levees
dikes or they’ll get trapped in a cycle
of dredging erosion dredging erosion we
know that these strategies are
unsustainable and they’re extremely
expensive but for a coastal state
worried about losing maritime territory
this seems like the best option Japan
for example has spent millions of
dollars since the late nineteen eighty
eighty s hardening the island of Okinawa
eeschema because Japan says that this is
an island and the reason is that this
single island generates a hundred and
fifty four thousand square miles of
maritime territory now china says that
this is a rock and it’s long-distance
fishing fleets are encroaching on that
territory which they say is high seas
it’s not exclusive economic zone this
clash of interpretations is likely to
play out all over the world as
coastlines retreat and I
are submerged and area seem up for grabs
again in terms of resource claims we
must look to and prepare for the future
because the sea levels are rising
whether or not we’re ready for the
consequences and as the Seas rise so too
does the legal uncertainty surrounding
the status of islands and coastlines we
need to freeze the existing position of
baselines and the status of islands and
rocks this is a solution that’s been
proposed by scholars since 1990 yet
which has been generally ignored by
policymakers and the public if the
international community froze existing
claims today we could mitigate the risk
of resource conflict do the right thing
regarding small island developing States
and incentivize the best possible
responses to sea level rise in terms of
resource conflict the legal stability
this interpretation would create would
decrease the pressure felt by coastal
states to militarize patrols in order to
kick out fishing fleets from what they
know is their maritime territory for
small island developing States it’s the
right thing to guarantee their control
over maritime territory even if their
islands become uninhabitable this may
give them a crucial bargaining chip as
they’re negotiating for new land a new
citizenship when they inevitably have to
relocate it may also allow them to hold
on to their status as independent states
by connecting the people and the
government to a territory watery though
it may be in terms of practical
responses to sea level rise in most
cases it’s a better option to have a
moderate retreat of human civilization
and infrastructure and allow coastal
wetlands like marshes and mangroves to
fill in this strategy is cheaper it’s
more sustainable its sequester’s carbon
dioxide and in terms of protecting the
coastline from extreme weather events
like the storm surges is so
stated with hurricanes it actually does
a much better job now you’re probably
thinking this is all very interesting
but what am I supposed to do about it
the first and most important thing that
we can do as US citizens is lobby the US
Senate to ratify the law of the sea
treaty which almost every other country
in the world except for the United
States and a handful of others like
Syria and Venezuela has already done
ratification would give us leverage over
how the treaty is interpreted in itself
the moment of ratification because it’s
been long delayed would provide an
unparalleled leadership opportunity for
the United States to forward the
position that I’ve outlined here it
would also give us access to special
courts that we could bring a case about
this issue too and start building a body
of jurisprudence that interprets the
treaty in this way if we do nothing
uncertainty is the best case scenario
more likely is that the status of
islands rocks and coastlines will be
understood as malleable in the legal
sense because that’s the interpretation
that China prefers and then they’re
implicitly forwarding in their Island
building activities and the locations
where their long-distance fishing fleets
are currently encroaching upon so we
don’t know how much or how fast the sea
levels will rise and we don’t know how
permanent or prevalent artificial
islands will be or how much money we’ll
have to build sea walls 50 or a hundred
years from now but uncertainty does not
mean that we can’t control our own fate
in terms of sea level rise a little bit
of concerted action and attention to the
law of the sea specifically to ratify
and clarify it will help us avoid the
worst possible concert consequences and
pursue the best possible responses to
global sea level rise thank you
you
[Applause]
law is failing to keep pace
more specifically the ocean is changing
in fundamental ways and yet the law of
the sea remains virtually unheard in the
last 50 years this disconnect between
the actual world and the world assumed
by international law is especially
visible and worrisome in the case of sea
level rise it’s as if we built a fence
over a pool of quicksand it’s not going
to separate your yard from mine for very
long so what problems does this create
and what can we do about it
coastlines have always fluctuated
naturally through erosion and sediment
deposition they move but the amount of
coastal dynamism we’re currently
experiencing is unprecedented in modern
human history coastlines are moving both
inward towards the land and in many
places outward into the sea
they’re moving inward because the sea
levels are rising although there is some
local and regional variation everywhere
and in general the seas are rising there
are two basic causes for this melting
glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are
adding to the total amount of water in
the oceans while the ocean is also
absorbing heat from the atmosphere which
causes its volume to expand so as sea
levels rise coastlines retreat in word
but in many places they’re also moving
outward dredging which sucks up sand
from one area and deposits it elsewhere
onto a reef or a beach is a very mature
technology and it’s used every year by
the Army Corps of Engineers and others
to replenish and expand coastal areas
and it’s even being used in places like
the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea
to construct entirely new islands where
previously there were none
so coastlines are moving more than ever
and more frequently than ever and yet
international law assumes that they
always stay in the same place the law of
the sea treaty is the Mae
body of international law that governs
the ocean it determines who controls
which parts of the sea and which boats
can do what and where it’s often called
the constitution for the oceans and it’s
negotiation in the 1970s and 80s was a
really major international
accomplishment most significantly it
creates zones of national control 12
miles from the coastline is territorial
sea and 200 miles is exclusive economic
zone these areas give the coastal state
and by state I mean country privileged
access to resources like fish and fossil
fuels and it also allows coastal states
like the United States to set and
enforce the rules about which votes can
do what in these areas but the problem
is there are two parts of the law of the
sea treaty that assume that coastlines
stay in the same place the first
concerns what’s called the baseline it’s
the starting point from which you draw
these 12 and 200-mile claims and the
treaty says the baseline is at the
low-water mark as shown on official
charts produced by the coastal states
but the treaty is unclear about whether
once the baseline is drawn its permanent
frozen in time or if in contrast the
chart needs to be periodically updated
to reflect the new water low water line
and therefore the new baseline so in
other words the baseline might stay put
or it might change as the coastline
changes and if it does move with the
coastline then that means so too does
the outer edge of that 200-mile claim
and we might be in a situation where
areas are reverting from national
control to a high seas status that’s
open access kind of a free-for-all in
terms of resources the other area where
the treaty assumes the coastline stays
in the same place concerns the status of
Islands versus rocks a rock is
uninhabitable it has no economic life of
its own but it still gets to generate a
12-mile territorial sea an island gets
that
plus a 200-mile exclusive economic zone
so in general it’s better to have
Islands than rocks if you want to claim
more maritime territory but once again
the treaty is dangerously vague about
the precise standards that differentiate
iraq from an island and more importantly
it says nothing about whether iraq can
become an island or vice versa
the common issue here is change when the
ocean itself changes does the legal
status of islands or the coastline
change – the question may seem abstract
but it has very real consequences for a
majority of the Earth’s population what
happens legally as sea levels rise will
impact our ability to achieve peace
stability and sustainability in the
century to come there are two groups who
are especially concerned about the
status of Islands versus rocks those who
are losing their islands to the rising
seas and those who are building entirely
new islands on one hand small island
developing states are worried about
losing their land and their maritime
territory as the Seas encroach upon
those islands they often become
uninhabitable before they’re entirely
submerged because saltwater intrudes
into freshwater deposits and on to crop
lands and because these states are often
made up of vast and far-flung
archipelagos of hundreds even thousands
of islands if even one island is
reclassified as a rock it could mean the
loss of hundreds of thousands of square
miles of maritime territory on the other
hand there are states like China
building new islands in part because
they want to make new claims over
maritime territory for China this is a
matter of grand strategy of increasing
their influence and militarized control
in the South China Sea but for its
Southeast Asian neighbors who are
objecting to these claims it’s an issue
of resource scarcity and food security
because China is using this island
building to claim fisheries that were
previously open for access
by anyone who could get there in terms
of the coastline the issue concerns
situations where the 200-mile claims
overlap which is actually pretty common
in this case the most typical response
is to draw a line at the halfway point
between baselines but if the baseline
changes then so too does the halfway
point and this presents a situation
where some states see an opportunity to
claim new resources and throw out old
agreements where other states feel
pressure to maintain existing claims and
agreements and anytime there’s a
valuable resource along that halfway
point whether it be fish or sea bed
minerals fossil fuels these will become
subject to new rounds of resource
competition and even potentially
conflict finally in terms of how we
respond practically to sea level rise
our legal interpretation and influences
what we do so if a coastal state is
worried about losing maritime territory
as the coastline moves inward they will
harden that coastline to defend its
existing position they’ll put cement on
the sand and build sea walls levees
dikes or they’ll get trapped in a cycle
of dredging erosion dredging erosion we
know that these strategies are
unsustainable and they’re extremely
expensive but for a coastal state
worried about losing maritime territory
this seems like the best option Japan
for example has spent millions of
dollars since the late nineteen eighty
eighty s hardening the island of Okinawa
eeschema because Japan says that this is
an island and the reason is that this
single island generates a hundred and
fifty four thousand square miles of
maritime territory now china says that
this is a rock and it’s long-distance
fishing fleets are encroaching on that
territory which they say is high seas
it’s not exclusive economic zone this
clash of interpretations is likely to
play out all over the world as
coastlines retreat and I
are submerged and area seem up for grabs
again in terms of resource claims we
must look to and prepare for the future
because the sea levels are rising
whether or not we’re ready for the
consequences and as the Seas rise so too
does the legal uncertainty surrounding
the status of islands and coastlines we
need to freeze the existing position of
baselines and the status of islands and
rocks this is a solution that’s been
proposed by scholars since 1990 yet
which has been generally ignored by
policymakers and the public if the
international community froze existing
claims today we could mitigate the risk
of resource conflict do the right thing
regarding small island developing States
and incentivize the best possible
responses to sea level rise in terms of
resource conflict the legal stability
this interpretation would create would
decrease the pressure felt by coastal
states to militarize patrols in order to
kick out fishing fleets from what they
know is their maritime territory for
small island developing States it’s the
right thing to guarantee their control
over maritime territory even if their
islands become uninhabitable this may
give them a crucial bargaining chip as
they’re negotiating for new land a new
citizenship when they inevitably have to
relocate it may also allow them to hold
on to their status as independent states
by connecting the people and the
government to a territory watery though
it may be in terms of practical
responses to sea level rise in most
cases it’s a better option to have a
moderate retreat of human civilization
and infrastructure and allow coastal
wetlands like marshes and mangroves to
fill in this strategy is cheaper it’s
more sustainable its sequester’s carbon
dioxide and in terms of protecting the
coastline from extreme weather events
like the storm surges is so
stated with hurricanes it actually does
a much better job now you’re probably
thinking this is all very interesting
but what am I supposed to do about it
the first and most important thing that
we can do as US citizens is lobby the US
Senate to ratify the law of the sea
treaty which almost every other country
in the world except for the United
States and a handful of others like
Syria and Venezuela has already done
ratification would give us leverage over
how the treaty is interpreted in itself
the moment of ratification because it’s
been long delayed would provide an
unparalleled leadership opportunity for
the United States to forward the
position that I’ve outlined here it
would also give us access to special
courts that we could bring a case about
this issue too and start building a body
of jurisprudence that interprets the
treaty in this way if we do nothing
uncertainty is the best case scenario
more likely is that the status of
islands rocks and coastlines will be
understood as malleable in the legal
sense because that’s the interpretation
that China prefers and then they’re
implicitly forwarding in their Island
building activities and the locations
where their long-distance fishing fleets
are currently encroaching upon so we
don’t know how much or how fast the sea
levels will rise and we don’t know how
permanent or prevalent artificial
islands will be or how much money we’ll
have to build sea walls 50 or a hundred
years from now but uncertainty does not
mean that we can’t control our own fate
in terms of sea level rise a little bit
of concerted action and attention to the
law of the sea specifically to ratify
and clarify it will help us avoid the
worst possible concert consequences and
pursue the best possible responses to
global sea level rise thank you
you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: