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World Oceans Day is coming to a body of water near you

The UN has designated June 8, this coming Monday, the first ever "World Oceans Day," a day dedicated to celebrating and protecting, well, the world's oceans. Our friends at Citizens for Global Solutions, UNA-USA, and the Better World Campaign are taking this opportunity to push for U.S. ratification of that long-overdue no-brainer of a treaty, the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

We've blogged about the Law of the Sea treaty before, making the rather uncontroversial argument that signing a treaty that will increase the United States' ocean territory, protect marine life, enhance research opportunities, and make international shipping lanes freer and safer -- and that is supported by Republicans and Democrats, oil executives and environmentalists, for crying out loud -- should be one of those things that fits into U.S. priorities quite obviously. Add to this the fact that nations that are a party to UNCLOS are rapidly gobbling up the remaining (and globally warming) Arctic ocean territory, and that the U.S. risks being left on the sidelines if it doesn't sign its name soon, and you have the ingredients of something that clearly should have been signed yesterday.

Unfortunately, the Law of the Sea has been held up for far too long by a handful of Senators with objections that, with any scrutiny whatsoever, turn out to amount to no more than myths. On the plus side, though, the Foreign Relations Committee's chairman, John Kerry, has stressed that UNCLOS will be a priority for the committee this year. But it is unlikely that the Senate would adopt any major treaty without strong presidential leadership.

So, via CGS, click here today or Monday to send a message to President Obama urging him to support ratification of this important but neglected treaty.

Ridiculously still-unratified treaty of the day

It's called the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, and it was adopted 12 years ago today (via IntLawGrrls' excellent "On this day in..." feature). Though it passed the UN General Assembly by a resounding vote of 103-3, the Convention has not yet entered force because the requisite 35 countries -- 35! -- have not yet ratified it.

What the treaty sets out are basically the regulations of how countries can mind the effects that their usage of border-crossing rivers have on other countries' usage. So, if a country wanted to build a dam on a river that flows into a neighboring country, it would have to notify that other country of the effects this project would have. Similarly, it would prevent one country from dumping pollutants in a river that would then be dumped into the country where the river ends.

This seems to make sense to me. And if a country found it onerous to have to consult with a river-sharing neighbor about a certain project, that seems to be only more reason to need to have a mechanism to deal with these kinds of disputes. Maybe if we could ratify the Law of the Sea here in the United States, we could make some progress on rivers, too...

UPDATE: Probably unsurprisingly, the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses didn't appear to make the list of top treaty ratification priorities for the United States.

(image from flickr user superciliousness under a Creative Commons license)

Taking Safe Water for Granted

This report illustrates why those with access to safe drinking water shouldn't take it for granted:

Vietnam is a nation crisscrossed by rivers and streams and has one of the longest coastlines in the world: Water is everywhere, yet there is hardly a safe drop to drink, with even much of the bottled water contaminated.

Tran Van Nhi, a scientist at the Vietnam Institute of Biotechnology, told IRIN Hanoi's water was heavily contaminated with ammonia: "It is 6-18 times higher than the allowed level."

A small amount of ammonia is not toxic but when it reacts with certain other substances, it can convert to a carcinogen, according to Nhi and other scientists. Nhi also found arsenic levels two to three times higher than acceptable World Health Organization standards.

Most residents boil drinking water as a matter of course, even though high temperatures do not remove arsenic or dangerous heavy metals. ...

In June 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 20,000 people living in Vietnam die each year from contaminated water and poor sanitation.

For much more on the topic, read Water, Sanitation and Hygiene from the WHO.

I’m blogging Matt Damon…

...while you're drinking Diet Snapple.
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He's in the house here at CGI as part of a "mega-commitment," which includes the Global Water Challenge. Their $25 million commitment will help fund new projects to provide safe drinking water and sanitation for the world's poorest people. The projects were selected through a changemakers.net competition. It's a really cool idea and a great way to forge the best ideas. Over 254 proposals for funding were submitted to GWC. I talked to executive director Paul Faeth about this for a while on Wednesday, and he loves developing this sort of marketplace for ideas. In general GWC are good folks and are doing great things. The global water crisis may be the most underreported major global crises. Nearly 900 million people lack access to safe drinking water, and $2.5 billion lack access to safe sanitation. A lack of access to safe sanitation is what caused the Black Death...in the 14th century. In addition to the day-to-day suffering of nearly a billion people, access to water has and will continue to be casus belli. Clinton has emphasized this issue several times during CGI. We applaud these groups for making such a generous and desperately needed commitment.