Actually, I was getting tired of having this argument thrown in our face. Whenever we'd go to international conferences to defend the Canadian position, there was bound to be an American colleague who would raise this issue. James Kraska of the Naval War College comes to mind. I wanted to know the answer, and with a colleague at the Université Laval, we got to work.
Often, the argument was if we say yes to the Canadian position on the Northwest Passage, what will happen in Gibraltar and Malacca, and what will happen to our global mobility capacity and ability?
The article was a success and not a success in the sense that those straits are well established. They are international straits subject to transit passage. However, I must confess that we discovered that if America was seen to yield or to acquiesce or to agree with the Canadian position, Russia might take that as a signal and might be encouraged in terms of its own claim, given its similarity. As Professor Byers was mentioning, we found that China also has a strait that is under debate. Is it a strait? Is it an internal passage? Even Japan has a sensitive strait where it is questionable whether it is a passage or within Japanese waters.
I suppose I was disappointed that I had to agree that if the United States moved on the Northwest Passage issue, perhaps Russia, China and Japan might be encouraged in terms of their own claims. It's much less of an issue than is made of it, though. Unfortunately, I don't think the lack of participation of the United States in the law of the sea convention changes that dynamic.