Forty-six years ago I told an editor of The New Republic that I’d like my first article for this publication to be about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Se a . I was an earnest summer intern, less than one month out of college. The editor, Michael Kinsley, seven years my senior, was the smartest journalist I’d ever met (he retains that distinction today). Mike gave me a pitying look and said: “Tim. The Law of the Sea is the most boring subject there is. Find something else.” It’