LOST no more?

Sorry, this is not a commentary on that survivalist series that seems to have taken couch potatoes by storm; check out that TV show if you must. But check out too a new ASIL Insight into another LOST: the Law of the Sea Treaty concluded in 1982, to which 153 other countries already belong. In their commentary our colleagues David D. Caron and Harry N. Scheiber explain how the opposition of a very few -- among them the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, 1st woman ever to serve as the United States' Ambassador to the United Nations -- stymied U.S. accession to a convention which enjoys the support of the

Defense Department, the State Department, the Commerce Department, the U.S. Coast Guard, the oil industry, the shipping industry, and the fishing sector, as well as environmental and conservation non-governmental organizations and religious organizations.

In mid-May U.S. President George W. Bush urged the Senate to give its advice and consent. "Senate delay may prove costly since treaties without leadership can decay," Caron and Scheiber write, sounding a warning that can be applied to other contexts, too.
(For news of another ocean-related treaty regime, see above.)