1. Home
2. Defence

US 7th fleet’s patrol in India’s Eez was an act of impropriety

YB WEB DESK. Dated: 4/13/2021 2:09:38 PM

New Delhi, Apr 12 Indian visitors to the official website of the Yokosuka- based Commander, US 7th Fleet, were bemused to read the following announcement: “On 7 April, 2021 USS John Paul Jones asserted navigational rights and freedoms… inside India’s EEZ, without requesting India’s prior consent.” With an equal mix of righteousness and chutzpa, the statement adds, “India requires prior consent for military exercises or manoeuvres in its EEZ… a claim inconsistent with international law… This freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) upheld international law by challenging India’s excessive maritime claims.” In an atmosphere of rapidly warming Indo-US relations, this gratuitous public declaration, coming within weeks of the US-led Quad Leaders virtual meeting and on the heels of a major Indo-US naval exercise can only be seen as an act of breath-taking inanity. The impropriety becomes even more obvious when viewed against the background that the “international law” being cited by Commander 7th Fleet is a UN Convention which resulted from the third UN Conference on Law of the Seas (UNCLOS 1982). India has ratified the Convention, which came into force in 1994, but there is rich irony in the fact that amongst the 168 nations who have either acceded to or ratified UNCLOS 1982, the US is conspicuous by its absence. The UN Secretariat has not charged any country with the role of overseeing or enforcing the implementation of UNCLOS. It is, therefore, intriguing to see that the US has arrogated to itself a “global-cop” role in its implementation. Since “rules-based maritime order” has become a much-used political catchphrase, it is worthwhile examining the provenance of these rules and the role played by the US, so far. At the risk of sounding doctrinaire, it must be said that the nine-year-long negotiations to formulate UNCLOS 1982 were essentially a struggle between the “haves” (the established European and North American maritime powers) and the “havenots” — the emerging “third-world” — who began to stake their legitimate claims on the usage and wealth of oceans. The first major challenge to the old order came from the US when, in 1945, President Harry Truman unilaterally declared US jurisdiction over all natural resources on that nation’s continental shelf.