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This Convention on the Law of the Sea has been kicking around since Ronald Reagan kicked it out of his administration. ....Clinton had the treaty reworked, and asked the Senate to ratify it. The Republican Senate refused. George Bush asked the Senate to ratify it during his first term; the Senate refused. Now, the administration is again pushing for ratification.... .....requires that the U.S. subject its sovereignty over its territorial seas to the treaty. Article 2(3) says: "... sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to this Convention and to other rules of international law." .... "dispute resolution" panels...

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.

The Old Man and the Law of the Sea Treaty by: Malcolm A. Kline, October 12, 2007 It’s always fascinating to watch tenured faculty members leaving their ivory cocoons where they lecture to impressionable teenagers and 20-somethings to come face-to-face with skeptical middle-aged men. Such an encounter occurred last week in one of the few hearings the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee deigned to hold on the Law of the Sea Treaty, the U.N.-generated pact that many fear would cede control of the oceans to that international body. “You’ve been assured by some venerable scholars who’ve sought for decades...

Liberal Senate Democrats and the U.S. State Department are desperate to get the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty ratified. But Senator David Vitter, a conservative Republican, keeps getting in the way. Through skillful questioning during Thursday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the Louisiana Republican got a leading treaty supporter to acknowledge that America's enemies can manipulate the process of mandatory dispute settlement under the treaty so that the United Nations Secretary-General plays the key role in the outcome. Vitter called this a "recipe for disaster" for America and urged more hearings into the treaty's flaws.

How well I recall the Panama Canal Treaty fight of thirty years ago. The political establishment was adamantly in favor of the Treaty. The people were against it. There were two political consequences of the ratification of the Treaty. Many Democratic Senators insisted they knew better than the people. The first of these was Senator Thomas J. McIntyre (D-NH). “I was elected by the people. I know more than they do. Of course, I am in favor of the Treaty.” Well, no. The people knew better than he did. He made that statement in 1977. The following year a co-pilot...

The media have been pummeling conservative Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana for apologizing for sexual indiscretions. But America should be grateful he stayed in the Senate and did not resign in the wake of the media assault. The senator demonstrated on Thursday, during a hearing into the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty, that he is going to continue to do the job he was elected to do. Vitter’s performance was so effective that he left State and Defense Department officials either speechless or caught up in embarrassing contradictions about the impact of this international agreement on America’s security...

THE UNITED NATIONS ... HARD AT WORK Venezuela's Hugo Chavez decided not to show at the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly ... he's probably too busy trying to turn back the clocks one half hour, to ensure that he is not on the same time as the "imperial United States." In the meantime, anti-Bush protestors were arrested on the streets of New York outside of the U.N. building. Business as usual. While the arrests were underway Bush was busy yanking the chains of Cuban delegates to the point where they up and left during his speech. Bush said...

A move by the Bush administration in May of this year which fell under the radar is soon to come to the Senate. On September 27th the Senate will debate and vote on the full ratification of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Seas or in short The Law of the Seas Treaty. The treaty in essence gives the United Nation legal jurisdiction over the planets ocean and sets up a tribunal to govern all legal claims to territorial waters, mineral rights and mining and other uses of the worlds oceans, including navigation. The treaty which has...

URGENT: Senate Liberals Urged to Act on International Criminal Court After Passing Law of the Sea Treaty; Americans At Risk. Will Senator Biden Railroad Treaty Through Senate? Senator Joseph Biden, Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not only has a history of unethical behavior, having been exposed as a notorious serial plagiarist, but is committed to putting the interests of other nations above those of the United States. The next few weeks could feature another one of his bizarre performances. Biden's committee is reported to be holding a hearing on the United Nations Convention on the Law of...

Unfortunately, the Law of the Sea Treaty is no laughing matter.On October 1962, President Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to prevent foreign ships from reaching Cuba unless they submitted to U.S. inspections on the high seas to verify that they were not transporting missiles or other offensive weapons to the island. Similar measures had been adopted in wartime blockades, but the Kennedy administration, not wanting to acknowledge a state of war with Cuba, termed this intervention a "quarantine." It was a soothing term in the midst of a confrontation which threatened to trigger a catastrophic nuclear exchange. So the Kennedy...

The sensational headlines say, “Russian Arctic Team Reaches North Pole.” But the U.S. was there first―back in the early 1900s. America, not Russia, has a valid claim to the North Pole. ... Yet, the U.S. State Department wants to turn the whole matter over to the United Nations. State Department officials, led by Condoleezza Rice’s top lawyer, John B. Bellinger III, are telling the press that the U.S. should immediately ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in order to contest Russia’s claim to the seabed under the North Pole. They seem to have forgotten that...

President Bush urged the Senate Tuesday to act on the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention during this session of Congress and won swift backing from two influential Republican senators. Republican Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Ted Stevens of Alaska echoed Bush’s call for ratification of the accord (Treaty Doc 103-39), which the Foreign Relations Committee approved unanimously in February 2004, under Lugar’s chairmanship. The Bush administration supported the treaty, but the accord never reached the Senate floor due to opposition from conservatives concerned it would surrender U.S. sovereignty. Current Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph R. Biden...

The U.S. Senate will soon exercise one of the fundamental responsibilities granted to it by the U.S. Constitution and vote whether to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Bush administration supports ratification and is joined in that position by a leading member of the U.S. Senate. The Foreign Relations Committee, which I chair, voted 19-0 to recommend to the Senate that the United States join 145 other parties to enter the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). That Senate decision is pending as this publication goes to press. The Senate Foreign Relations...

The very controversial Law of the Sea Treaty, LOST, which is still in committee, is a done deal, according to a senior White House official. Of the 145 countries that have ratified this United Nations treaty, the U.S. is the only major power not to have ratified it. Various groups of countries that have signed it include all of the G8 countries with the exception of the U.S., almost two-thirds of the countries in our hemisphere that are members of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas, as well as both NAFTA partners. The Law of the Sea was placed...

 # 542   August 2006 Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty: A Not-So-Innocent Passage by David A. Ridenour  The "right of innocent passage" is the right of any nation's ships to traverse continuously and expeditiously through the territorial waters of a coastal nation, subject to certain conditions.1  Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, such passage is conditioned on passing in a manner that isn't threatening to "sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence" or the "good order and security" of that nation.By this definition, if the Law of the Sea Treaty was a ship, it would fail...

We're beating the United Nations - PLEASE HELP Your efforts are beginning to work! Our members have sent over SIXTY THOUSAND faxes to ALL 55 Republican Senators, demanding that they REJECT passage of the United Nations "Law of the Sea Treaty" (LOST) -- the OUTRAGEOUS treaty that would impose UN taxes on the American people, and would entail history's biggest and most unwarranted voluntary transfer of wealth AND surrender of sovereignty. This ridiculous treaty is the SAME treaty that Ronald Reagan REFUSED to sign, but Bill Clinton wanted passed -- and now some Senators are trying to push it through...

Anti-piracy advocate calls for changes to UN Convention (SINGAPORE) International shipping is paying the price for the 'obsessive' emphasis on sovereignty in the Straits of Malacca, said anti-piracy advocate Alan Chan who is urging changes to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). The 22-year-old Unclos needs to be updated to extend its emphasis on safety to include security, said the anti-piracy advocate and chairman of tanker firm Petroships. 'Unclos is very much concerned with safety,' Mr Chan told delegates at the recent International Maritime & Port Security Conference. 'In those days the issue of security...

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...

Sometimes words can mislead by lulling us to sleep when we should be awake. Utter the words, "Law of the Sea Treaty" (LOST), and watch people's eyes glaze over. When it comes to this treaty, the road warriors of the Left hope yours do, too. Don't let them. Keep reading. LOST, if ratified, would represent the single greatest loss of sovereignty in the history of America. It must be stopped. For our purposes, the LOST story begins in 1980, when Republicans condemned this Carter-era treaty in their national platform. It continues in 1981, when the treaty was sprung on President...