Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to make the case for the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The United States is the only major nation yet to sign the 1982 treaty. It establishes a system for resolving disputes in international waters and recognizes sovereign rights over a country’s continental shelf out to 200 nautical miles.

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