The decision of the United States and 22 other countries not to sign the Law of the Sea Convention in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on December 10, 1982, raises the important question of the legal effects of the. Convention upon nonsignatories (hereinafter referred to as “third states”). Will the latter be entitled to claim and enjoy treaty provisions beneficial to them, such as those pertaining to military or commercial navigation through international straits, including submerged passage and overflight rights, or will these rights be considered as contractual in nature, exercisable only by states parties? Clearly, the question is of critical importance to the regime of the law of the sea. Since there has been to date no systematic legal analysis of this important question in debates surrounding the Law of the Sea Convention, this essentially legal question has been consigned to general policy pronouncements.
