Law of the Sea Treaty : The U.N.'s big power grab - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2007, 12:48 AM

The U.N.'s big power grab
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
October 2, 2007

If Americans have learned anything about the United Nations over the last 50 years, it is that this "world body" is, at best, riddled with corruption and incompetence. At worst, its bureaucracy, agencies and members are overwhelmingly hostile to the United States and other freedom-loving nations, most especially Israel.

So why on earth would the United States Senate possibly consider putting the U.N. on steroids by assenting to its control of seven-tenths of the world's surface?

Such a step would seem especially improbable given such well-documented fiascoes as: the U.N.-administered Iraq Oil-for-Food program; investigations and cover-ups of corrupt practices at the organization's highest levels; child sex-slave operations and rape squads run by U.N. peacekeepers; and the absurd, yet relentless, assault on alleged Israeli abuses of human rights by majorities led by despotic regimes in Iran, Cuba, Syria and Libya.

Nonetheless, the predictable effect of U.S. accession to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea — better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (or LOST) — would be to transform the U.N. from a nuisance and laughingstock into a world government: The United States would confer upon a U.N. agency called the International Seabed Authority (IA) the right to dictate what is done on, in and under the world's oceans. Doing so, America would become party to surrender of immense resources of the seas and what lies beneath them to the dictates of unaccountable, nontransparent multinational organizations, tribunals and bureaucrats.

LOST's most determined proponents have always been the one-worlders — members of the World Federalists Association (now dubbed Citizens for Global Solutions) and like-minded advocates of supranational government. They have made no secret of their ambition to use the Law of the Sea Treaty as a kind of "constitution of the oceans" and prototype for what they want to do on land, as well.

Specifically, the transnationalists (or Transies) understand LOST would set a precedent for diminishing, and ultimately eliminating, sovereign nations. It would establish the superiority of international mechanisms for managing not just "the common heritage of mankind," but everything that could affect it.

In the case of LOST, such a supranational arrangement is particularly enabled by the treaty's sweeping environmental obligations. State parties promise to "protect and preserve the marine environment." Since ashore activities — from air pollution to runoff that makes its way into a given nation's internal waters — can ultimately affect the oceans, however, the U.N.'s big power grab would also allow it to exercise authority over land-based actions of heretofore sovereign nations.

Unfortunately, the Senate has been misled on this point by the Bush administration. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte claimed in testimony before the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee last Thursday that the treaty has "no jurisdiction over marine pollution disputes involving land-based sources." He insisted, "That's just not covered by the treaty." Worse yet, State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger, said, "[LOST] clearly does not allow regulation over land-based pollution sources. That would stop at the water's edge."

Thank goodness for Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, who caustically observed, if that were true, "Why is there a [LOST] section entitled 'Pollution from Land-Based sources?' " He went on to note there is not only a section by that name, but a subsequent section on enforcement concerning such pollution.

Few senators have more immediate reason to worry about LOST's dire implications for our sovereignty than Mr. Vitter and his Democratic colleague, Mary Landrieu. It is inconceivable that their state's crown jewel, New Orleans, would be in business today — even in its diminished, post-Katrina condition — had the United States been subject to this Treaty when that devastating hurricane hit Louisiana and Mississippi.

Enforcement of the unprecedented commitment not to pollute the marine environment can be compelled via LOST's mandatory dispute resolution mechanisms. The U.N.'s Law of the Sea Tribunal is empowered to "prescribe any provisional measures" in order "to prevent serious harm to the marine environment." States parties are required to "comply promptly with any [such] provisional measures."

Surely, the sovereign act taken in an emergency situation — which dumped into the Gulf of Mexico vast quantities of toxic waste that had accumulated in Lake Pontchartrain after Katrina — would have been enjoined in this manner. Does any senator want to assure such interference in our internal affairs in the future?

Scarcely more appetizing is LOST's empowering of a U.N. agency to impose what amount to international taxes. To provide such an entity with a self-financing mechanism and the authority to distribute the ocean's wealth in ways that suit the majority of its members and its international bureaucracy is a formula for unaccountability and corruption on an unprecedented scale.

To date, the full malevolent potential of the Law of the Sea Treaty has been more in prospect than in evidence. If the United States accedes to LOST, however, it is predictable that the treaty's agencies will: wield their powers in ways that will prove very harmful to American interests; intensify the web of sovereignty-sapping obligations and regulations promulgated by this and other U.N. entities; and advance inexorably the emergence of supranational world government.

Twenty-five years ago, President Ronald Reagan declined to submit our sovereignty to the United Nations and rejected the Law of the Sea Treaty. If anything, there are even more compelling reasons today to prevent the U.N.'s big power grab.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a participant in the Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty (www.RejectLOST.org).

http://washingtontimes.com/article/2...012/COMMENTARY

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2007, 12:52 AM

This is not the first time this "treaty" has come up ....

March 18, 2004, 11:56 a.m.
Don’t Get LOST
The White House toys with signing a very Kerry treaty.

In the wake of international terrorism's most-successful strategic attack since September 11, 2001, the differences between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush about how the war on terror should be waged have become as clear as, well, the differences between the outgoing Spanish premier and his successor.

To be sure, even before last Thursday's murderous explosions in Madrid, Senator Kerry and his surrogates were denouncing the war in Iraq on the grounds that President Bush failed to get the U.N.'s permission for it — and then was unable to turn the governance of the country post-Saddam over to the so-called "international community." This theme has, however, received mantra-like repetition by the Democratic candidate and his echo chamber ever since the terrorists took down Spain's government.

The good news is that the Bush administration has finally launched a powerful counterattack. Just about every senior national-security official from President Bush on down has suddenly been made available to explain the logic of removing Saddam Hussein from power as an indispensable part of the war on terror. They and key legislators (like Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee) have at last gone on offense in response to the ceaseless, direct, and indirect attacks on the Bush team's integrity as it made the case for draining the "swamp" that was Saddam's terrorist-sponsoring, WMD-wielding Iraq.

Perhaps most importantly, President Bush and his advocates have directly challenged Senator Kerry, et.al., with respect to what may prove to be the most important foreign-policy issue of the 2004 campaign: John Kerry's worldview that U.S. freedom of action around the world can safely — and, indeed, as a practical matter must — be subordinated to the U.N.'s superior judgment. In a powerful example of the assault now being inflicted on the Kerry record and candidacy, Vice President Cheney declared yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: "The United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country."

The bad news is that the Bush administration risks grievously blurring where it stands on the appropriate, limited role of the United Nations in determining our security and other interests with its advocacy of a treaty that President Reagan properly rejected 22 years ago. As was noted in this space on February 26, the administration's declared support for the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) caused it to be approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — even though this accord would constitute the most egregious transfer of American sovereignty, wealth, and power to the U.N. since the founding of that "world body." In fact, never before in the history of the world has any nation voluntarily engaged in such a sweeping transfer to anyone.

This is the case because LOST creates a new supranational agency, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which will have control of seven-tenths of the world surface area, i.e., the planet's international waters. That control will enable the ISA and a court created to adjudicate and enforce its edicts the right to determine who does what, where, when, and how in the oceans under its purview. This applies first and foremost to exploration and exploitation of the mineral and oil and gas deposits on or under the seabeds — an authority that will enable the U.N. for the first time to impose what amount to taxes on commercial activities.

LOST, however, will also interfere with America's sovereign exercise of freedom of the seas in ways that will have an adverse effect on national security, especially in the post-9/11 world. Incredibly, it will preclude, for example, the president's important new Proliferation Security Initiative. PSI is a multinational arrangement whereby ships on the high seas that are suspected of engaging in the transfer of WMD-related equipment can be intercepted, searched, and, where appropriate, seized. Its value was demonstrated in the recent interception of nuclear equipment headed to Libya.

Similarly, LOST will define intelligence collection in and submerged transit of territorial waters to be incompatible with the treaty's requirements that foreign powers conduct themselves in such seas only with "peaceful intent." The last thing we need is for some U.N. court — or U.S. lawyers in its thrall — to make it more difficult for us to conduct sensitive counterterrorism operations in the world's littorals.

Since my last column on this subject, there have been several notable developments with respect to the Law of the Sea Treaty:

It has become clear that one of the prime movers behind the Bush administration's support for this U.N.-on-steroids treaty is none other than John Turner, a man property-rights activists kept from assuming a senior position in the Interior Department. Correctly seen by that community as a wild-eyed proponent of conservation at the expense of landowners' equities, he was given a consolation prize: a seemingly innocuous post as the State Department's assistant secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. It turns out that in that position — and thanks to his longtime friendship with Vice President Cheney — Turner has greatly advanced what is arguably the most egregious assault on property rights in history.

The United States Navy has trotted out arguments for this treaty that reflect what might be called the River Kwai Syndrome. Like the British senior POW in World War II who couldn't bring himself to blow up a bridge his captors would use to their military advantage, Navy lawyers seem convinced that a bad deal is better than none.

Even though this accord will manifestly interfere with important peacetime naval operations, JAG types tell us they think it will be good for their business if freedom of the seas is guaranteed by a new, U.N.-administered international legal system rather than by U.S. naval power. They speciously assert that a 1994 agreement negotiated by President Clinton fixes the problems that caused President Reagan to reject LOST — never mind that the Clinton accord does not amend or otherwise formally modify one jot of the treaty.

Fortunately, this nonsense will be exposed to critical examination in coming weeks as two Senate committees, Environment and Public Works and Armed Services, hold hearings on LOST. Their chairmen, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) and John Warner (R., Va.), respectively, deserve credit for inviting critics of the treaty (including this author) to provide testimony Indiana Republican senator Richard Lugar refused to permit the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hear before it approved the resolution of ratification. (Other committees that have equities in this fight — like Governmental Affairs, Commerce, Energy, Intelligence and Finance — have yet to be heard from.)
The prospect these hearings and the attendant public scrutiny of the Law of the Sea Treaty will precipitate a time-consuming and politically costly debate has prompted Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) to say that he sees no opportunity for the foreseeable future to bring this accord to the floor. Assuming he is good to his word, still more time will be available to awaken the American people to what is afoot.

Most importantly, one of those people, President George W. Bush, may recently have been awakened to the dangers — political, as well as strategic and economic — inherent in this treaty. In response to a question recently put to him by Paul Weyrich, the legendary conservative activist and president of the Free Congress Foundation, President Bush indicated that he was unaware of the Law of the Sea Treaty and his administration's support for it. It can only be hoped that, as he conducts the promised review of LOST, he will make clear he does not want it ratified, now or ever.

Better yet, President Bush should assign his trusted undersecretary of Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, the job of arranging for LOST to be "unsigned" — just as he did with respect to the fatally flawed treaty that created the International Criminal Court. Secretary Bolton would be particularly appropriate for this job, since he was also the prime architect of the Proliferation Security Initiative that the Law of the Sea Treaty would eviscerate.

While such developments are generally welcome, one thing curiously has not happened. The alarm about the defective Law of the Sea Treaty has still not been sounded by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. It can only be hoped that, as the Senate hearings on LOST start next week, this oversight will be corrected, ensuring that the treaty is deep-sixed, once and for all.

http://www.nationalreview.com/gaffne...0403181156.asp

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2007, 12:53 AM

Will the U.S. be LOST at Sea?
By Quin Hillyer
Published 10/12/2007 12:08:15 AM

Item: From the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1975 edition, the definition of "sovereignty": "Freedom from external control : Autonomy," and "a supreme power especially over a body politic."

Item: From the U.S. Constitution: "The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made...." And: "This Constitution...and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Despite these clear constitutional provisions, the Bush administration and the Democratic congressional leadership are trying to secure ratification of the so-called Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) -- which creates an "International Seabed Authority" and an "International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea," which set up and oversee what have been described as "mandatory dispute resolution tribunals." Those tribunals will have jurisdiction over "protection and preservation of the marine environment." And nations that sign the treaty "shall" (in other words, it is mandatory) "enforce" all laws necessary to "control pollution of the marine environment from land-based sources."

In other words, any alleged sea pollution that supposedly originates from within the land borders of the United States shall be subject to legal action under the aegis not of U.S courts, but of tribunals controlled by these foreign bodies.

That certainly doesn't sound like "sovereignty." It doesn't sound like U.S. courts remain "the supreme law of the land." It doesn't sound like our own policies concerning activity on our own lands would enjoy "freedom from external control."

The time is short. The treaty is expected to be put forth for Senate ratification some time this fall. But conservatives, for good reason, are beginning to rally against it. If President George W. Bush continues to push LOST, he risks a repeat of the fierce internecine battle against his own base that he lost so overwhelmingly on the subject of immigration. Moving forward with the treaty would therefore be both a truly horrible policy choice and sheer political folly.

Others more expert than than I, including two of Ronald Reagan's most trusted associates, have explained in great detail all the things wrong with LOST. But on the level of principle, the issue is really simple: Is the United States a sovereign nation or not?

It is one thing to submit trade disputes to international referees. It is quite another to submit to international bodies the right to decide if our own internal laws meet their shifting bureaucratic standards. The latter is a far more dangerous proposition.

Arguments from administration lawyers to the contrary -- in other words, that the international tribunals would not try to encroach on our sovereignty -- are specious. Long experience with our own American judicial branch demonstrates that even a judiciary that supposedly is carefully limited in scope by a wise and balanced constitution cannot help but try to aggregate ever more power to itself. It would be madness to count on restraint from foreign busybodies armed with treaty language as definitive as "shall" combined with clauses as elastic as "take other measures necessary."

One would think that a conservative administration that has so carefully tried to promote judicial restraint at home would vociferously oppose adherence to foreign tribunals that have neither record of nor incentive for restraint.

In truth (as some of the other writers previously referenced show at some length), the Law of the Sea Treaty is chock full of things American conservatives detest from the very marrow of our beings: foreigners asserting control over our affairs, multiple layers of bureaucracy, decks stacked in favor of Third World interests, open invitations for spurious lawsuits, and encouragement of mischief by radical environmentalists.

Conservatives, indeed all Americans who care about our national autonomy, should not let LOST pass unnoticed. If the United States becomes the land of the LOST, our sovereignty might go the way of the dinosaurs.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12156

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2007, 01:01 AM

Sink The Law Of The Sea Again
by Phyllis Schlafly
September 26, 2007

With all the critical problems facing America today, it's hard to see why President Bush is wasting whatever is left of his presidential clout to partner with Democratic presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden (DE) to try to get the Senate to ratify the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is scheduled to hold a hearing loaded with pro-LOST witnesses and then try to sneak through ratification while the public is focused on other globalism and giveaway mischief.

LOST is the globalists' dream bill. It would put the United States in a de facto world government that rules all the world's oceans under the pretense that they belong to "the common heritage of mankind." That's global-speak for allowing the United Nations and its affiliated organizations to carry out a massive, unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the United States to other countries.

LOST has already been ratified by 155 countries. Most of them no doubt expect corrupt UN bureaucrats to divvy up the riches at the bottom of the sea, which will be brought to the surface by American investment and technology, and parcel them out to Third World dictators to support themselves in the lavish style to which they would like to become accustomed.

Why must we who believe in American sovereignty have to keep fighting the same battles over and over again? President Ronald Reagan rejected LOST back in 1982, not because of picky details in the text, but because LOST would put the United States in the clutches of a supranational ruling clique.

The argument is being made that Reagan's objections were "fixed" in 1994. That's a sham because no one country can legally change the terms of a treaty that has already been signed and ratified by over a hundred countries, and 25 countries have not agreed to the 1994 changes anyway.

Furthermore, changing a few details of the treaty does nothing to address the massive loss of U.S. sovereignty which Reagan and grassroots Americans found impudent and obnoxious.

LOST has already created the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and given it total jurisdiction over all the oceans and everything in them, including "solid, liquid or gaseous mineral resources." LOST even gives the ISA something the UN bureaucrats have lusted after for years: the authority to impose international taxes (disguised by euphemisms such as fees and royalties).

LOST would subject our governmental, military and business operations to mandatory dispute resolution by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany. If you think activist judges in the United States are out of control, wait till you try your case before this UN tribunal, whose decisions cannot be appealed.

Since several U.S. Supreme Court justices are on record as using, and urging others to use, foreign law in deciding U.S. cases, LOST would be an open invitation to our activist judges to interpret LOST's purposely vague provisions. Liberal U.S. judges might even develop the theory that LOST is "evolving" (like liberal notions about the U.S. Constitution), so that liberal social and especially environmental biases could be written into our laws.

All LOST agencies are United Nations organizations, and the UN Secretary General plays an important role in administering the treaty. With the UN's shocking track record of corruption, it makes no sense to give it a new infusion of power and money.

The Bush Administration argues that we need LOST to protect our interests in the world's oceans and to assure that our Navy can go where it needs to go. The problem with that argument is that if we join LOST, we will be bound to abide by its decisions.

Based on our experience in other international organizations such as the World Trade Organization, decisions will usually be contrary to U.S. security and economic interests. The U.S. Navy can already go wherever it needs to go, and we need to keep it that way.

One of the silliest arguments is that we need LOST to protect us against Russia's claim to the North Pole and its oil riches. If we ratify LOST, we would have to accept the LOST tribunal's decision. Even though the United States already has valid claims to the North Pole region under the Doctrine of Discovery, the chances of the LOST bureaucrats ruling for us against Russia are about 1 in 155.

Incidentally, a 13-year-old boy in Finland who had been a repeat watcher of the movie "Titanic" exposed the fraud that the pictures shown on Russian television of a Russia submarine on a North Pole seabed were just clips taken from the movie.

The best protection for U.S. interests in the world's oceans is the U.S. Navy, which should not and must not be subject to orders or regulations made by paper pushers in the ISA or rulings of the International Tribunal. U.S. access to the high seas, as well as freedom of the seas for all countries, is best protected by a great U.S. Navy, not a UN bureaucracy financed by a global tax.

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/200.../07-09-26.html

see also : http://www.eagleforum.org/topics/LOST/

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2007, 01:02 AM

Permission Slip for the Sea
By Oliver North
Friday, October 12, 2007

WASHINGTON -- In his 2004 State of the Union Address, President Bush said, "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country." Members of both parties and both houses of Congress applauded. But if the Senate votes to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea -- known as the Law of the Sea Treaty -- or its appropriate acronym -- LOST -- he and his successors are going to need lots of permission slips.

In 1982, Ronald Reagan, concerned about the treaty's implications for our sovereignty and national security, formally rejected LOST because it did "not satisfy the objectives sought by the United States." In 1994, William Jefferson Clinton, eager to appease One World Government advocates in his own party and at the United Nations, negotiated a parallel "agreement" that purported to address Mr. Reagan's concerns -- and urged ratification. Since then, LOST has gathered dust in the bowels of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All that may be about to change. The deeply flawed, Soviet-era agreement giving unelected, unaccountable international bureaucrats control over 71 percent of the Earth's surface is now on a fast track to ratification.

Advocates for LOST -- among them Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del. -- claim that the Clinton-negotiated parallel "agreement" eliminates concerns about empowering international organizations to collect heavy fees or interfere with the U.S. military or intelligence collection. Yet a careful reading of LOST's 202 pages -- and the so-called agreement -- proves that's not true.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea already has created a Byzantine array of international organizations to administer the provisions of LOST. Everything from compliance with global environmental agreements, to the collection of "user fees" from private companies, to disputes about military operations above, on or under international waters are subject to mandatory dispute resolution by one or more of these international bodies.

According to the U.N., the purpose of LOST is to preserve international waters for peaceful purposes. But Articles 19 and 20 of the treaty would proscribe the U.S. Navy from training with weapons, collecting intelligence or interfering with enemy communications in the territorial waters of other countries without their expressed permission. Military aircraft are prohibited specifically from taking off and landing in these waters, and severe limitations would be imposed on loading and unloading "any commodity, currency or person" including military equipment. Submarines are required to travel on the surface and "show their flag in territorial waters." Article 30 states that warships not complying with the laws of a coastal nation can be forced to leave. Disputes about these issues would be adjudicated by international lawyers. Right.

LOST's proponents discount these concerns by claiming the U.S. simply will exempt military activities from the treaty's compulsory dispute resolution requirements. However, the "opt out" clause in Article 298 fails to define such operations. In our own Congress, intelligence functions are not considered to be military activities, so it is far from certain that the U.N. would accept the U.S. position that intelligence operations over, on or under the seas are indeed military activities. If there is a dispute as to what is or isn't a military activity, LOST requires the matter to be resolved by international arbitration.

In 2003, Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that rulings from these arbitration panels "could have an impact on operational planning and activities, and our security." Last week, in response to questions from Sen. David Vitter, R-La., during a committee hearing, professor Bernard Oxman, a witness supporting LOST, admitted that if the parties to a dispute can't agree on the arbitration panel, the U.N. secretary-general will chose the arbitrators. Lawyers in Pyongyang, Havana and Tehran: Call Turtle Bay.

LOST also opens the door to a long-sought U.N. goal: the redistribution of wealth by taxing Americans. The International Seabed Authority, a bloated, multinational bureaucracy headquartered in Jamaica, has the mandate to distribute revenues and "other economic benefits" on the basis of "equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing states." In addition to acting as a global IRS, the ISA also decides which companies from which nations will develop mineral resources on the seabed.

In urging ratification, former President Bill Clinton described LOST as "a far-reaching environmental accord" that would "harmonize" U.S. laws to "prevent, reduce and control pollution" in the "best practical means." But Article 213 requires nations to adopt "laws and regulations to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from land-based sources." Thus, LOST could become a means of enforcing another agreement we never ratified: the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Al Gore, call your office.

Before casting a vote to ratify LOST, all 100 senators should read Article 314 of this onerous treaty and Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.N.-crafted document specifies that amendments to the treaty can be adopted -- and therefore enforced -- without the consent of any signatory. Yet our Constitution requires that two-thirds of our Senate concur in any treaty. Do 67 members of this Senate now want to surrender that authority to foreign governments?

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/O...ip_for_the_sea

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2007, 01:11 AM

Is there any reason left why we should continue our “membership” in this pathetic “organization” known as the “United” “Nations”? Any more reasons we should send “funding” to “membership” at Turtle Bay?

I have a much better “Law of the Sea” idea. How about the arrangement we have now, the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and allied naval forces are the “Sheriff of the Seas”?

If you want to engage in nefarious activities that threaten the commercial sea lanes, odds are that the U.S. Navy will find you and deal with it, as they have for 200 years. Barbary Pirates anyone? The Shores of Tripoli? The Gulf of Sidra, Quaddaffi’s line of death? Thomas Jefferson did not have 12 Carrier Battle Groups at his command.

The operating principle of our Navy has always been Freedom of the Sea, which sounds a lot better to me than a U.N. administered “Law of the Sea”, and funded by international tax schemes. I wonder who will be taxed the most aggressively, and who will secure “victimhood exemptions”? Think Castro or Chavez will have to pony up the cash? Putin, or Ahminthemoodforjihad?

What about the fictional nation of Palestine?

What will be imposed upon the Isreali Navy?

Will Kim Jong Mentally-Ill have to pay maritime taxes on any of his black-market enterprises, which rely on sea smuggling and counterfiet U.S. currency? Could he manipulate this structure to injure his southern enemy, the free, democratic and incredibly prosperous king of commercial shipping, South Korea? How could he get at Japan’s maritime economy?

Will Red China manipulate the U.N. power structure behind this treaty to pressure, intimidate and isolate free Taiwan? How about another maritime powerhouse, Singapore? the Phillipines? Australia?

How would this treaty affect the security arrangements in the Persian Gulf, the most strategically and economically important stretch of water in the world today?

What about the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, and other strategic waterways around the world?

In the coming dispute over rights to the Arctic seabed, where will the U.N. come down, in favor of Imperial Russia’s new Czar Putin conquering new territories for the Motherland, or the free people of Alaska and Canada?

Just a few of the many questions I have about this. We the people need answers, and quick, before it’s too late to stop the Supra-Transnational protection racket. Think Admiral Anthony Soprano, U.N. International Seabed Authority.

It’s not like the U.N. actually bothers to enforce its regulations.
And, in this case, it’s hard to see how it could possibly enforce any “law of the sea” without the active cooperation of the US Navy. Not since the sinking of the Spanish Armada has one nation been so utterly dominant on the oceans.

Then again, that dominance does us no good if we voluntarily go along with this crap, something I’m more than a little afraid we’ll do.

To those saying that the US Constitution would over-rule any of this … sorry … the language in the agreement says flat out that we relinquish that by agreeing to this back-door to the Kyoto treaty and turn over complete control of the fishing, naval activities, etc., to the UN and their appointed regulatory commission … so that means Cuba, Iran, Syria, etc., could control our Navy and fishing industries … it also basically ends our freedom to conduct military exercises when and where we want … plus throw in the Kyoto crap that if there is any pollution of the oceans caused by something that happens on land as well as at sea that the country (read U.S.A.) has to accept the ruling of these U.N. assigned arbitrators making up these “commissions” … plus they can levy fines and we have to pay what in essence is taxes to the U.N. for seaborne activity … this even includes things like drilling for oil or extracting any other natural resources that may be in the ocean … do you want the U.N. telling us we can’t have naval training exercises or have planes take off from carriers or that submarines must at all times travel on the surface within certain distances from land … it’s all in there … and the list goes on and on folks …

We should pull out of the UN (saving ourselves both headaches and the national budget) and then we need to reclaim our territory in New York and tell the UN to move itself to somewhere else. I am all for international cooperation, NOT international surrender. There is no cooperating with countries that hate our guts, and those who view our treasury as the world’s ATM.

tngirl · 10-14-2007, 03:31 AM

Quote:

We should pull out of the UN (saving ourselves both headaches and the national budget) and then we need to reclaim our territory in New York and tell the UN to move itself to somewhere else. I am all for international cooperation, NOT international surrender. There is no cooperating with countries that hate our guts, and those who view our treasury as the world’s ATM.

Just another reason to get out of the UN. Unfortunately, it may already be too late to rectify the damage that has already been done to our sovereignty as a nation. There are already so many UN programs in play already, programs that were given power by the men and women that we have elected.

Jolie Rouge · 10-31-2007, 05:40 PM

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Fast-tracked LOST faces Senate vote
GOP battling plan to give U.N. control of 70 percent of planet
October 31, 2007

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote today on the ratification of the United Nations' Law of the Sea Treaty, a wide-ranging measure critics say will grant the U.N. control of the 70 percent of the planet under its oceans.

With Democrats in nearly unanimous agreement with the treaty and the Bush administration behind it, it will be up to a handful of determined Republican senators to derail it.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will oppose the plan, and other senators have indicated they have heard from constituents who are afraid of the proposal.

"In the same way that the people prevailed in the Senate in the matter of defeating the illegal alien amnesty bill, it is entirely possible that the U.N. power grab known officially as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) could be rejected," one commentator noted.

"If you want a U.N. on steroids, you want the Law of the Sea Treaty," Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has said.

A two-thirds vote is required for approval, meaning only 34 "no" votes can kill it.

This is not the first time LOST has come up. International negotiators drafted it in 1982 in an attempt to establish a comprehensive legal regime for international management of the seas and their resources. President Ronald Reagan, however, refused to sign LOST because he realized that the treaty doesn't serve U.S. interests.

In 1994, however, President Clinton signed a revised version of the treaty and forwarded it to the Senate. The record shows the Senate was not convinced the 1994 changes corrected the problems, and it has deferred action on the treaty ever since.

The Heritage Foundation warns the treaty would have unintended consequences for U.S. interests – including a threat to sovereignty.

The conservative think tank says "bureaucracies established by multilateral treaties often lack the transparency and accountability necessary to ensure that they are untainted by corruption, mismanagement or inappropriate claims of authority. The LOST bureaucracy is called the International Seabed Authority Secretariat, which has a strong incentive to enhance its own authority at the expense of state sovereignty."

"For example, this treaty would impose taxes on U.S. companies engaged in extracting resources from the ocean floor," wrote Heritage fellows Baker Spring and Brett D. Schaefer. "This would give the treaty's secretariat an independent revenue stream that would remove a key check on its authority. After all, once a bureaucracy has its own source of funding, it needs answer only to itself."

"The United States should be wary of joining sweeping multilateral treaties negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations," say Spring and Schaefer of Heritage. "Specifically, the benefit to U.S. national interests should be indisputable and clearly outweigh the predictable negative consequences of ratification."

Other critics fear the treaty will be used as a back-door to implement policies against global warming without any accountability to the American people. Parts of the treaty, they say, mandate international regulation of U.S. economic and industrial activities on land. With that in mind, critics of the treaty believe so-called greenhouse gases could be viewed as ocean pollutants.

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing recently, Bush administration officials were repeatedly embarrassed by tough questioning from Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who also has led opposition to ratification.

For instance, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte testified the U.N. body established by the treaty has "no jurisdiction over marine pollution disputes involving land-based sources."

"Why is there a section entitled pollution from land-based sources?" questioned Vitter.

Vitter also questioned who decides what is considered military activity under the treaty.

"We will decide that. We consider that within our sovereign prerogative," said Negroponte.

"Where does the treaty say that we decide that and an arbitral body does not decide that?" questioned Vitter.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England answered: "My understanding – and I'll ask my lawyer behind me – that that's in the treaty that we make that determination and that's not subject to review by anyone else."

"It's not in the treaty because I point to Article 298 1b where it simply says disputes concerning military activities are not subject to dispute resolution," explained Vitter. "But it doesn't say who decides what is and what is not a military activity."

England conceded the point.

"We say it is up to us, but nobody else in the world says it is up to us," Vitter said.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said the United States had special military and commercial interests as the globe's only superpower, interests that the treaty did not take into account. He said many of the concerns over loss of national sovereignty that surfaced in the recent debate over immigration reform were surfacing once again in the Law of the Sea debate.

"This is not a good time to be bringing something like this before the American people," he said.

The battle over the Law of the Sea Treaty first began 25 years ago, eventually being torpedoed by President Reagan. It resurfaced in 2004 under the sponsorship of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and was defeated by then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Then a short time agoPresident Bush announced his intention to seek reintroduction of LOST for ratification to a small group of trusted Republican grass-roots organizers – an announcement that was met with horror and scorn.

Eagle Forum leader Phyllis Schlafly, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, Leadership Institute President Morton Blackwell, Free Congress Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and leaders of the Heritage Foundation were quick to denounce the idea in forceful terms, calling on their members to begin lobbying the White House immediately.

LOST has long had the support of environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council.

It would establish rules governing the uses of the of the world's oceans – treating waters more than 200 nautical miles off coasts as the purview of a new international U.N. bureaucracy, the International Seabed Authority

The ISA would have the authority to set production controls for ocean mining, drilling and fishing, regulate ocean exploration, issue permits and settle disputes in its own new "court."

Companies seeking to mine or fish would be required to apply for a permit, paying a royalty fee.

Critics also point out the new U.N. agency would have the right to compete directly with private companies in those profit-making activities.

The U.S. would have only one vote of 140 – and no veto power as it has on the U.N. Security Council.

The Bush administration claims the initiative for reintroduction of the treaty comes from the military, which likes the 12-mile territorial limits it places on national claims to waters. Yet, critics point out international law already protects non-aggressive passage, including non-wartime activities of military ships.

One of the main authors of LOST not only admired Karl Marx but was an ardent advocate of the Marxist-oriented New International Economic Order. Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a socialist who ran the World Federalists of Canada, played a critical role in crafting and promoting LOST, as WND reported in 2005.

Borgese was hailed by her U.N. supporters as the "Mother of the Oceans" or "First Lady of the Oceans." She died in 2002.

In an article co-authored with an international lawyer, Borgese noted how LOST stipulates that the oceans "shall be reserved for peaceful purposes" and that "any threat or use of force, inconsistent with the United Nations Charter, is prohibited."

She argued LOST prohibits the ability of nuclear submarines from the U.S. and other nations to rove freely through the world's oceans.

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58433

Blogger Rob Bluey writes: “Keep an eye on Senators John Sununu (N.H.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.).” He’s put together a YouTube playlist of LOST commentary. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...68CCCDF4E4C1C0

Jolie Rouge · 10-31-2007, 05:41 PM

October 30, 2007 12:45 PM

The Mysterious Case of the Law of the Sea
By The Editors

Law-enforcement agencies, in their efforts to solve crimes, look for “signature” patterns — a regular alias, an explosive used to crack safes, a particular method of breaking into homes — that point to the identity of the perpetrator. Maybe the FBI should look into the “Mysterious Case of the Law of the Sea,” which is an attempt to smuggle through the U.S. Senate a transfer of sovereignty from the U.S. to the United Nations — without even waking the senators up.

Who could propose such a daring crime? Consider the following clues: There have been two clear attempts in recent years to get the Law of the Sea — or as it is known to Interpol, “The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” — ratified without holding proper hearings that include respected and respectable critics of UNCLOS. Remember anything else recently that was intended to be rushed through Congress without proper scrutiny? Was it perhaps the proposed “comprehensive” immigration reform? Exactly so.

Do “helpful” stories of no usual interest suddenly make headlines just before some controversial legislation is about to be discussed? You are perhaps thinking of those (unseasonal) reports that “crops were rotting” in the fields, which appeared shortly before Congress was due to discuss extending and expanding an agricultural-immigrant worker program. Such reports bear a curious resemblance, do they not, to recent stories that oil discovered under the North Pole makes it essential that the U.S. have the backing of UNCLOS in order to contest Russian claims north of the Arctic Circle?

And, finally, there is the modus operandi of barefaced lying: “No, officer, that’s not an amnesty there. Nothing like an amnesty, in fact. Take our word for it.” On this occasion, the claims made for UNCLOS are no more credible than those about amnesty, merely more numerous. For instance, Sen. Richard Lugar is on record as arguing that this issue really has nothing to do with the U.N., and that it’s just a historical accident of no significance that UNCLOS has “United Nations” in its title. Yet the treaty states plainly that it is “in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations as set forth in the Charter.” And the staff in two UNCLOS agencies are already signed on to the U.N. pension scheme. Hmmm.

We could cite other examples. But enough has surely been written to demonstrate that the selling of UNCLOS is a white-collar crime that has the fingerprints of the Bush administration all over it. Yes, the White House has allies — the usual suspects in fact: the Democrats and some Republicans, the U.S. State Department, the NGOs of the Left, international civil servants, law professors seeking another treaty as pretext to read their own opinions into law, and above all what Hudson Institute scholar John Fonte has called “transnational progressives” (or, for short, Tranzis).

So why is the Bush administration strongly urging passage of UNCLOS?

The reason has little or nothing to do with the value of UNCLOS to the U.S. Its codification of existing maritime law, while modestly useful, grants the U.S. no rights it does not already possess under earlier and customary law. Those who argue, as U.S. Navy lawyers do, that it will help the Navy assert American rights over North Pole oil (always supposing such oil exists in large quantities) must explain (a) why UNCLOS would be certain to support the American case once we had accepted its authority by joining the treaty; (b) who would enforce a favorable UNCLOS ruling over Russian or other objections apart from — the U.S. Navy; and (c) if other powers would be required to help the U.S. enforce a favorable decision under (b), exactly why the U.S. Navy would not be similarly required by UNCLOS to enforce decisions favorable to third parties in other disputes of no concern to the U.S.

The short answer is that the U.S. gains nothing important under UNCLOS. What we lose is that we submit to UNCLOS authority on a range of maritime rights we currently enjoy by virtue of being a sovereign nation-state — and currently exercise in, for instance, the Proliferation Security Initiative. In addition, we will acquiesce to three new supra-national agencies (which are either part of the U.N. system or responsible to no one); to their regulation of U.S. corporations’ access to seabed mineral resources; and, in effect, to the first independent international taxing authority.

Why do this?

Well, it seems to be part of a pattern. That pattern includes also the astonishing decision of the Bush White House to seek the overriding of Texas law on the death penalty in deference to the World Court. What we are seeing is an outbreak of Tranzi-ism in the administration. Cowed by accusations of earlier “unilateralism,” the administration now bends over backwards to placate the “international community.” The permanent bureaucracy at the U.S. State Department has long been in the grip of this tendency. Since the departure of John Bolton, our diplomatic officialdom seems to have kept a pliant administration, including both president and secretary of state, under its sway. As a result we may soon be relying on a U.N. bureaucracy to maintain the freedom of the seas essential to our trade, commerce, and military alliances.

No doubt this policy is cheaper than a larger Navy — but it is no substitute for one.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...U4YmI1Zjg1OGQ=

Jolie Rouge · 10-31-2007, 05:43 PM

Update 11:25am Eastern. Joe Biden rejects Sen. David Vitter’s request for an additional hearing on LOST. Biden attacks Frank Gaffney and Fred Smith for their opposition to the treaty. Biden moves to hold a vote on Vitter’s motion; interrupted by a few objections. Sens. Coleman and Isakson object to Vitter’s motion despite their questions about LOST. Vitter withdraws his motion. Sen. Murkowski speaks up to support LOST.

Sen. Coleman voices concern about LOST on security grounds. “Are we in a war today? Is it a war on terror? Does that have implication here? Dispute settlement mechanisms would allow international agencies to take action against US Navy…cites Jeremy Rabkin’s analysis. http://www.cei.org/pdf/5352.pdf

Coleman opposes moving LOST to the Senate floor.

Update 11:44am Eastern. The vote: 17-4. LOST moves to the Senate floor. Stay tuned.

And dial your Senators: 202-224-3121.