Socialist was behind United Nations sea treaty

Elisabeth Mann Borgese One of the main authors of the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST, not only admired Karl Marx but was an ardent advocate of the Marxist-oriented New International Economic Order, according to a new report.

Supporters of LOST – now before the U.S. Senate and backed by the Bush Administration – depict it as a pact that merely guarantees freedom of navigation on the high seas. But a new report issued by Cliff Kincaid of the public policy group America's Survival Inc. identifies Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a socialist who ran the World Federalists of Canada, as having played a critical role in crafting and promoting LOST.

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

"The name of Elisabeth Mann Borgese is probably unknown to most backers and opponents of LOST," states Kincaid. "But any analysis of the treaty and its impact has to take her life and influence over LOST into account."

President Reagan rejected the pact, and his ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick, said it was viewed as the cornerstone of a New International Economic Order that would transfer money and technology from the U.S. and other developed countries to the Third World.

Although supporters say the measure has been fixed, Kirkpatrick still is part of the massive conservative opposition to LOST.

Kincaid says that at a time when the U.N. is under fire for mismanagement, corruption and scandal, LOST establishes a new international legal regime, including an International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, to govern activities on, over and under the world's oceans.

The treaty explicitly governs seven-tenths of the world's surface and permits international rules and regulations concerning economic and industrial activities on the land area of the world in order to combat global warming and other perceived pollution dangers.

The youngest daughter of the German novelist Thomas Mann, Borgese openly favored world government, wrote for the left-wing The Nation magazine and was a member of a "Committee to Frame a World Constitution." She served as director of the International Center for Ocean Development and chairman of the International Oceans Institute at Dalhousie University in Canada.

The U.N. Environment Program, UNEP, has said that Borgese recognized the oceans as "a possible test-bed for ideas she had developed concerning a common global constitution."

Borgese received UNEP's "Environment Prize" in 1987 and was credited with organizing the conferences that "served to lay the foundation" for the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, according to Dalhousie University, which houses her archives.

In a 1995 speech, pro-U.N. Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell said Borgese's ideas were "embodied in the negotiated texts of the Law of the Sea Convention."

Her ideas included recognizing the oceans as the "common heritage of mankind" and creating an International Seabed Authority to charge U.S. and foreign companies for the right to mine the ocean floor. This has been regarded by many LOST critics as a global tax scheme.

In a January 1999 speech, Borgese declared, "The world ocean has been, and is, so to speak, our great laboratory for the making of a new world order."

In an article titled, "The New International Economic Order and the Law of the Sea," she argued that the pact could "reinforce" the goals of the NIEO by giving Third World countries a role in managing access to the oceans.

In a 1997 interview, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcaster Philip Coulter asked Borgese about the collapse of Soviet-style communism and the triumph of the "elites."

Borgese replied "there is a strong counter-trend. It's not called socialism, but it's called sustainable development, which calls ... for the eradication of poverty. There is that trend and that is the trend that I am working on."

The concept of "sustainable development," considered a euphemism for socialism or communism, has been embraced in various pronouncements by the U.N. and even the U.S. government.

In her book, "The Oceanic Circle: Governing the Seas as a Global Resource," she approvingly cites Karl Marx, the father of communism, as someone with "amazing foresight" about the problems faced by urban and rural societies. The book is available from the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

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

Borgese is one of many members of the World Federalist Movement identified by America's Survival as instrumental in crafting and lobbying for passage of LOST over the course of decades.

Although sometimes regarded as small and without much influence, prominent personalities such as Walter Cronkite and former Republican Congressman John B. Anderson are world federalists, and former President Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton endorsed the group's activities.

U.S. State Department Official Asks for International Agency Funding(Law of the Sea)
state.gov ^ | 22 April 2005 | U.S. State Department

Posted on 04/23/2005 7:03:55 AM PDT by nextthunder

U.S. State Department Official Asks for International Agency Funding

Assistant Secretary Kim Holmes explains U.S. multilateral priorities

22 April 2005

The level of the State Department's request for new funding for international organizations shows that the United States values its participation as a member and views the work of those organizations as important to U.S. national interests, a top official says.

Kim Holmes, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, said the $2.34 billion fiscal year 2006 budget request is "sizeable" because it funds organizations and partnerships "that help make Americans -- and people around the world -- safer, more prosperous, and free." He made this observation as part of April 21 testimony to the House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies about future funding for international organizations.

The request has two components, Holmes said: contributions for peacekeeping activities (CIPA) and funding for international organizations (CIO). The former account funds 15 of the United Nations’ 17 current peacekeeping operations, plus part of the cost of the international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, he said. (Two other U.N. peacekeeping missions are funded from the regular U.N. budget.) The latter account funds U.S. membership in 47 international organizations, chief among them the United Nations.

The fiscal year 2006 funding request for CIPA is $1.04 billion, Holmes told the subcommittee, which is $227 million less than fiscal 2005. The CIO request is larger -- $1.3 billion -- and is $130 million (11 percent) more than the level approved for fiscal year 2005. The increase, Holmes said, "reflects the continued impact of a weakened dollar, an increase to the U.N. budget generated by special political missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and security improvements for U.N. personnel." The request also proposes funding three organizations not funded in fiscal year 2005: the International Coffee Organization, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and International Seabed Authority.

Holmes offered the subcommittee examples of successes for U.S. policies in various international organizations:

-- The United Nations has reached consensus on a new Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, which will strengthen the international legal framework for fighting terrorism, he said.

-- Last year, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1540, which establishes nonproliferation standards applicable to all countries for the first time, and endorses global partnerships like the Proliferation Security Initiative.

-- Regarding Lebanon, Security Council Resolution 1559 called upon Syria to withdraw all its forces -- which Syria is now doing. Holmes said Syria "could not ignore the united voice of the international community that spoke in these resolutions."

-- At the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (funded through CIO), U.S.-backed resolutions were approved condemning human rights abuses in Cuba, reducing by one the number of anti-Israel resolutions, and criticizing the human rights situation in Burma, North Korea and Belarus.

Another organization funded through CIO, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is:

-- Working with the U.S. and the United Kingdom to verify that Libya has ended its nuclear weapons programs;

-- Investigating Iran's nuclear program and monitoring Iran's suspension of sensitive nuclear-fuel enrichment activities; and

-- Dealing effectively with safeguards violations by Egypt and South Korea.

Other organizations mentioned in Holmes' remarks include the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Labor Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization, the World Health Organization, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and UNICEF. The complete transcript of Holmes statement can be found on the Internet at http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/45037.htm

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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