Troubled waters on U.N. oceans treaty

LEON E. PANETTA and retired Adm. James D. Watkins were on Capitol Hill last week lobbying for a treaty that, depending on how you look at it, is three to 25 years overdue for a Senate vote. As co-chairmen of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative and former heads of two major blue-ribbon panels on the state of our seas, they recently gave the government a C-minus in ocean policy. One of the categories that helped drag that grade down was international leadership — in which the U.S. was given a D-minus because of its ongoing failure to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

By David Helvarg

March 12, 2007