U.S. Senate on Wednesday was urged to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the sake of diplomatic, economic and security interests of America.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, as well as Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a strong case of the need for the U.S. to join the treaty.

Stressing the urgency of U.S. joining the convention, Clinton said that most U.S. military, political and economic communities now support the U.S. accession to the treaty, which could bring about many benefits not only for national security, but also for its economy.

"We have a coalition of environmental, conservation, business, industry and security groups all in support of this convention," she said.

Clinton listed four major reasons for her argument, including acquiring extended area of continental shelf for oil and gas exploration, conducting deep seabed mining on ocean floor beyond any country's control, asserting U.S. interests to the Arctic region, and influencing the decision-making bodies created under the convention.

The top U.S. diplomat rejected the claims by some U.S. critics who oppose the U.S. accession to the treaty that such move could surrender U.S. sovereignty to an international body, including subjecting the U.S. to binding dispute settlement under the treaty, and paying benefit of resource rights beyond the 200-mile zone along its coast.

"The benefits of joining have always been significant, but today the costs of not joining are increasing," Clinton warned.

For his part, Panetta said he strongly believes that the accession to the convention "is absolutely essential," not only to the U.S. economic and diplomatic interests, but also to its security interests.

"If we are sitting at the international table of nations, we can defend our interests. We can defend our claims. We can lead the discussion in trying to influence treaty bodies that develop and interpret the Law of the Sea," Panetta said.

Joining the treaty will also give the U.S. authority to support and promote the peaceful resolution of disputes within a rules- based order, as well as secure the U.S. freedom of navigation and of overflight rights throughout the Arctic, he said.

"For too long, we have undermined our diplomatic authority to fight for our rights ad our maritime interests and for too long we 've allowed our inability to act to impair our national security," Panetta said.

John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, also sided with Clinton and Panetta in supporting the U. S. approval of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Kerry added that, in order to exclude politics from the process of ratifying the treaty, he would not bring it to a vote at the Senate before the presidential elections due in November.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, reached in 1982 and became effective in 1994, has been signed by 161 countries. U.S. conservatives in Congress have blocked ratification of the treaty for years, arguing that it will give too much power to an international body over mineral rights.