House Passes Bill to Slash Funds to U.N.

WASHINGTON - Culminating years of frustration with the performance and behavior of the United Nations, the House voted Friday to slash U.S. contributions to the world body if it does not substantially change the way it operates.

The 221-184 vote, which came despite a Bush administration warning that such a move could actually sabotage reform efforts, was a strong signal from Congress that a policy of persuasion wasn't enough to straighten out the U.N.

"We have had enough waivers, enough resolutions, enough statements," said House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the author of the legislation. "It's time we had some teeth in reform."

The legislation would withhold half of U.S. dues to the U.N.'s general budget if the organization did not meet a list of demands for change. Failure to comply would also result in U.S. refusal to support expanded and new peacekeeping missions. The bill's prospects in the Senate are uncertain.

Just prior to the final vote, the House rejected, 216-190, an alternative offered by the top Democrat on the International Relations Committee, Tom Lantos of California, that also would have outlined U.N. reforms but would have left it to the discretion of the secretary of state whether to withhold U.S. payments.

During the two days of debate, legislators discussed the seating of such human rights abusers as Cuba and Sudan on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the oil-for-food program that became a source of up to $10 billion in illicit revenue for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., won backing for an amendment under which the United States would use its influence to ensure that any member engaged in acts of genocide or crimes against humanity would lose its U.N. membership and face arms and trade embargoes.

Hyde was joined by lawmakers with a litany of complaints against what they said was the U.N.'s lavish spending, its coddling of rogue regimes, its anti-America, anti-Israel bias and recent scandals such as the mismanagement of the oil-for-food program in Iraq and the sexual misconduct of peacekeepers.

The administration on Thursday had urged the Republican-led House to reconsider the legislation. The administration said in a statement that it is actively engaged in U.N. reform, and the Hyde bill "could detract from and undermine our efforts."

Eight former U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, including Madeleine Albright and Jeane Kirkpatrick, also weighed in, telling lawmakers in a letter that withholding of dues would "create resentment, build animosity and actually strengthen opponents of reform."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed support earlier this week for another congressional effort to bring about U.N. reform. A task force led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell, a Democrat, recommended such changes as setting up an independent auditing board and weighted voting on financial issues for members who contribute more to the budget.

Also Thursday, the administration supported a measured expansion of the Security Council, but said widespread reform of the United Nations takes precedence.

"We are not prepared to have Security Council reform sprint out ahead of the other extremely important reforms that have to take place," Rice said at a news conference. She cited management, peace-building and halting the proliferation of dangerous weapons technology.

The bill, with amendments, lists 46 reforms sought. They include cutting the public information budget by 20 percent, establishing an independent oversight board and an ethics office, and denying countries that violate human rights from serving on human rights commissions.

The secretary of state would have to certify that 32 of the 39 reforms have been met by September 2007, and all 39 by the next year, to avoid a withdrawal of 50 percent of assessed dues.

U.S.-assessed dues account for about 22 percent of the U.N.'s $2 billion annual general budget.

The financial penalties would not apply to the U.N.'s voluntarily funded programs, which include UNICEF and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/21/175626.shtml

Conservatives Break With Bush on LOST

Wes Vernon

Tuesday, Feb 22, 2005

"It would be an egregious political error for anyone to try and run this through in the dark of night in the United States Senate."

Those words by American Conservative Union (ACU) Chairman David Keene drew the unmistakable line in the sand, speaking for the organized conservative movement with a warning to politicians who want conservative backing in the future.
Moreover, the very people who whose support was crucial to re-electing President Bush last year have united in a break with his administration on a highly charged foreign policy matter. The issue is the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which raises a myriad of sovereignty, taxation and defense-against-terrorists issues.

At least 27 conservative organizations – ranging from economic to social issues activists – released a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind. It was he who did in fact ram LOST through his committee last year "in the dark of night," when no one was looking.

The letter's none-too-subtle finger-wagging reprimand (when read between the lines) really meant, "We caught you, and don't try that again because we'll be watching."

Its actual words were "Regrettably, the Committee did not take testimony from any witnesses opposed to this convention, also known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) – a fact that almost certainly contributed to the unanimous support LOST enjoyed when the vote to report out the resolution was taken."

The full Senate failed to act on the measure after NewsMax blew the whistle on the "dark of night" operation. Now, with a new Congress, a new resolution would have to be introduced before the Senate could act on the treaty.

"We believe that before the Foreign Relations Committee takes any further steps in that direction, a fresh set of hearings should be convened at which opponents, as well as proponents, will be afforded an opportunity to testify," the conservatives said.

Reagan Refused to Sign LOST

At a news conference during the just-completed annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, the letter was announced and/or signed by a Who's Who in the conservative movement, including – but by no means limited to – Keene (ACU), Paul Weyrich (Free Congress Foundation), Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (Center for Security Policy), Fred Smith (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Richard Viguerie (Conservative HQ), Kevin Kearns (U.S. Business and Industry Council) and Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform). Also represented in the letter were Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and the Objectivist Center (of Ayn Rand origins).

The letter cites President Ronald Reagan, who "wisely refused to sign LOST in 1982, on the grounds that it was the product of an unfriendly international agenda that aimed to redistribute the world's wealth from developed nations like the United States, to developing ones."

Among those at the news conference in the Ronald Reagan Center, site of this year's CPAC gathering, was Reagan-era Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, known far and wide for having drawn a rhetorical bead on the "Blame America First" crowd.

Kirkpatrick recalled that when President Reagan took office, he was confronted by a LOST that had been signed by his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. Some Reagan advisers, Kirkpatrick said, tried to convince Reagan that as long as Carter had signed the treatu, "we might as well make the best of it and move on."

Reagan, who had a sixth sense about threats to the best interests of America, would have none of that. He saw LOST as "fundamentally open-ended."

Not so incidentally, it is relevant to mention here that one of the "undeveloped" nations that would benefit from this wealth transfer would be Communist China, which has been building a war machine that could turn on us someday. Do you like the idea of your hard-earned tax dollars going toward that dangerous nonsense?

U.N. Would Control 70 Percent of Earth

Not only is the treaty's International Seabed Authority (ISA) empowered to regulate activities "on or under" the seven-tenths of the globe's surface that lies beneath international waters (a fact brought out last year by Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe at an Armed Services Committee hearing), the ISA is also authorized to levy taxes on Americans, with none of those pesky elected congressmen or senators having anything to say about it.

Senator Inhofe participated in the CPAC coalition news conference and said he was very busy these days refuting misinformation peddled by LOST advocates. For example, he said, the apologists are trying to convince people that the U.N. would have nothing to do with implementing major portions of the treaty. Not so. The treaty spells it out in black and white. And yes, "on or under" does include flights over the oceans.

Another of President Reagan's concerns back in 1982 was that the Soviet Union and so-called non-aligned nations dominated the negotiations that gave the ISA international taxing authority.

David Keene – the head of ACU – said the issue could resonate politically in a big way.

"Ask yourself this question," he said. "If you asked the American people how many people believe that Kofi Annan and his United Nations ought to be able to collect a tax from us, what would the answer be? If you asked people if you agree or disagree with the proposition that control over 70 percent of the surface of the earth should be turned over to Kofi Annan and the United Nations, how many people would agree with that? That's what this issue is about. The issue is about whether the United States stands up for its own rights, or whether we acquiesce in a sort of mushy world domination by a bunch of crooks."

That, of course, is another way of saying if you like the Oil-for-Food Scandal, you'll love the U.N. running LOST.

ATR's Grover Norquist objected strenuously to the international taxing authority. "Some may say, well, this just starts in the water. But so do amphibians and reptiles. At some point, the United Nations will start getting those little gill things and start getting out on the land, and you would see an expanded ability to tax. This is a 'foot in the door' to tax people directly rather than going to member states. This is a bad idea on its own. It is a particularly bad idea because it would grow and the United Nations would have its own taxing source and it would figure out ways to expand that. We should kill this now."

In answer to a question, the coalition identified supporters of LOST as including "radical environmentalists, one-world government types, some business interests, quite frankly, who believe that this will advance their particular commercial interests."

Breaking With the Bush Administration

Patrick J. Buchanan, author of "The Death of the West" and former third party presidential candidate (though he supported George W. Bush's re-election in 2004), defined LOST as "a transfer of sovereignty, a transfer of taxing authority [and] it creates another instrument of world government, and I cannot understand – speaking personally – how any conservative who believes in the sovereignty of this country and its continued independence can sign on to a treaty which helps construct a new world order and a world government of which this International Seabed Authority is a critical part."

One reporter asked if this meant the conservative movement had made a clean break with the Bush administration. Keene responded that "the conservative movement is opposed to the Law of the Sea Treaty and is opposed to the administration's support of the Law of the Sea Treaty. Does that mean we're breaking with the administration? It does with the Law of the Sea Treaty."

Again harking back to her own experiences with this treaty during the Reagan days, Ambassador Kirkpatrick said, "We thought that we had killed it." She compared LOST to "one of those snakes with a large number of heads, and those heads just keep reproducing themselves after you cut one off. The Law of the Sea Treaty, in my opinion, would be nothing but a problem for the United States."

Right. That problem could manifest itself in a showdown with terrorist or enemy nations. They could use LOST authority to block our right to interdict ships heading for our shores with weapons of mass destruction.

The letter to Senator Lugar notes that LOST "compels parties to submit to mandatory dispute resolution, something the Senate has traditionally rejected," and that "the U.S. would be committed to transfer potentially militarily relevant technology to possibly unfriendly hands."

Authority on matters vital to U.S. interests would rest with a 35-memebr body, Kirkpatrick warned. "At least we are guaranteed a seat on that 35-member body. But then we're guaranteed a seat on the [U.N.] Security Council too. We also have a veto on the Security Council. We wouldn't have a veto on the Law of the Sea so-called executive authority."

And in case anyone thinks that is not serious, the former ambassador cited the inability of Ppresident Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to persuade the Security Council to adopt a crucial second resolution on Iraq's aggression, back in 2003.

The coalition letter to Chairman Lugar concludes: "Senators Jon Kyl, James Inhofe, and Jeff Sessions have requested that the Government Accountability Office [GAO] update its past, comprehensive assessments of the Law of the Sea Treaty and provide its independent analysis of a number of important questions that have arisen in the course of hearings to date. We would respectfully suggest that any hearings your committee and its counterparts might hold on LOST await the completion of the GAO's report."

It takes only 34 senators to defeat a treaty. I asked how close the opponents were to getting that. The Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney, who has repeatedly testified and worked against LOST, said he does not have a head count. "My guess is that at the moment, most senators don't know anything about this treaty. Our purpose, particularly through this hearing process, is to make sure that's not the case if and when they are asked actually to vote. Because of the defects we have talked about here, I am confident there will be enough senators to defeat this treaty."

But only if you and your neighbors contact your senators and supply them with information on LOST, let them know that you hope they will work against it and that you will be watching their moves on this issue.

Treaties in the past have managed to slip through because the public was not alerted to what was in them. The conservative movement has sounded the alarm, and it is being picked up by grass-roots activists all around the country. The rest is up to you.

This testimony is perhaps one of the best summations of this subject:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/tst081104c.cfm

The Testimony of Baker Spring

F.M Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy

The Heritage Foundation

On The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Before

The House Committee on International Relations

May 12, 2004

Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to have the opportunity to testify before this distinguished committee on the matter of ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals discussing their own independent research. The views expressed are their own, and do not reflect an institutional position for The Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees.

Mr. Chairman, those who founded our nation recognized the power to make treaties is an extremely important power. In their wisdom, they sought to ensure that treaties would serve the national interest by dividing that power between the executive branch and the Senate. Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution states that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties.” Further, Article II establishes a two-thirds voting requirement for the approval of treaties by the Senate. Clearly, they intended to place the burden on the proponents of a treaty to demonstrate its value to the United States. The far-reaching provisions of the treaty that is the subject of this hearing amply demonstrate why the nation’s founders divided the treaty-making power. There are compelling reasons why the Senate should take the time and care necessary to review this treaty and understand all its implications. While the House of Representatives does not have a role in the advice and consent process, its members can and should contribute to the debate over whether the United States should ratify a treaty such as this one.

In March 23rd testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, International Environment, and Scientific Affairs John F. Turner confirmed that the administration supports Senate approval for the ratification of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as the Convention). The Administration’s position is puzzling to me because the United States had considered and rejected the Convention during the Reagan Administration. I do not see a compelling reason to revisit the issue today.

While proponents of the Convention argue that the Clinton Administration resolved the problems with the treaty that led to its rejection in the 1980s, through renegotiation in 1994, the fact remains that it represents a potential turning point for the U.S. in the history of international relations. The Convention presents the U.S. with a stark choice. On the one hand, the U.S. may enter into this treaty and proceed on a path that cedes U.S. sovereignty to executive and quasi-judicial international authority with compulsory powers or reject the treaty and stick to the tried and true international system where relations are established between and among sovereign states.

While the Convention contains a wide variety of questionable provisions, its real danger stems from the fact that the treaty represents more than the sum of its questionable provisions. It establishes open-ended procedures for administering these provisions that could lead to negative outcomes for the U.S. that are all but impossible to predict by simply reading its text. If the U.S. becomes a participant in this treaty, following a move by the Senate to approve ratification, it may regret it in the years ahead.

Myriad Problems. The Convention has a variety of problems. This is not surprising given that the treaty takes up more than 150 pages. What is surprising is that even the proponents of the treaty both inside the Administration and outside it have publicly acknowledged a number of the dangers associated with several specific provisions. Prior to any decision to ratify the Convention, the public should fully understand the dangers posed by these provisions. The review process, however, should not stop there. Interested citizens need to take the additional step of understanding each of these provisions in the context of the open-ended and in some instances compulsory dispute settlement and other procedures found in the Convention, over which the U.S. will only have limited control and that could produce adverse outcomes that are all but impossible to predict. The following represents four general shortcomings of the Convention:

Problem #1: Loss of Sovereignty. Traditionally, treaties, with only narrow exceptions, have been defined as formal agreements between and among sovereign states that help define their relations to each other as sovereign states. They are inherently political agreements. The option to change such relations and the concomitant power to discontinue adhering to the terms of a treaty is solely the prerogative of the sovereign.

First and foremost, the Convention represents a departure from that tradition. It establishes institutions with executive and judicial powers that in some instances are compulsory. For example, Section 4 of the Treaty establishes the International Sea-Bed Authority. The authority basically is given the power to administer to the “area” under the jurisdiction of the treaty, which includes all the world’s oceans and seabed outside national jurisdiction. This is a granting of executive powers to the authority that supersedes the sovereign power of the participating states. Of even greater concern, Part XV of the Convention establishes dispute settlement procedures that are quasi-judicial and mandatory. Once drawn into this dispute settlement process, it will be very difficult for the U.S. extricate itself from it.

Proponents of the Convention acknowledge the far-reaching political and legal ramifications of U.S. adherence to the treaty. University of Virginia School of Law Professor John Norton Moore, a supporter of the Convention who is also testifying today, stated that he sees it as a means for fostering the rule of law in international affairs. In fact, he has stated that adherence to the Convention is “one of the most important law-defining international conventions of the Twentieth Century.”

This is quite an assertion. In fact, it is the most troubling aspect of the Convention because the conduct of international relations for centuries has been a more a political than a legal process. Unacknowledged in the language about fostering the rule of law in international relations is the reality that in this particular case it entails subordinating the powers of the participating states to the dictates of an international authority. When it comes to the essential powers for the conduct of international relations, the use of force, and the exercise of diplomacy, they are not readily divisible but they are readily transferable. The Convention is a vehicle for transferring these essential powers from the participating states to the international authority established by the treaty itself. It represents the establishment of the rule of law over sovereign states more than it is establishing a rule of law made by them.

Former Secretary of State George Shultz provides a succinct rejoinder to those who envision the rise of the “rule of law” in international relations in the way it is devised in this Convention. Speaking at the Library of Congress on February 11, 2004, Secretary Shultz stated:

First and foremost, we must shore up the state system. The world has worked for three centuries with the sovereign state as the basic operating entity, presumably accountable to its citizens and responsible for their well-being. In this system, states also interact with each other to accomplish ends that transcend their borders. They create international organizations to serve their ends, not govern them.

Problem #2: Unnecessary limitations on the exploitation of resources. The Convention was drafted at time when the failed policies of state control over resources to meet demands for the redistribution of those resources were in vogue. Specifically, Article 140 of the Convention states that all activities outside the jurisdictional waters of individual states “be carried out for the benefit of mankind” while “taking into particular consideration the interests and needs of developing States.” These international waters and the accompanying seabed are defined as those outside the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) the treaty leaves within the jurisdictional control of participating states.

It is unclear why the U.S. should accept a treaty that is so explicitly biased against its interests when it comes to the access to resources. This is particularly so when this bias reflects a policy preference for the redistribution of resources that the world abandoned over a decade ago. The world economy is now organized around the requirements of the market. As elsewhere, the application of market principles regarding the exploitation of sea-based resources will ensure the effective and efficient use of those resources. U.S. adherence to the Convention, therefore, would represent a step backward.

Problem #3: A step in the direction of international taxing authority. The Convention contains an ill-advised revenue-sharing provision that is applied to income derived from oil and gas production outside the EEZ. The general bias in the Convention, as I indicated earlier, is in favor of the redistribution of seabed resources. This bias is codified in the area of oil and gas revenues. The U.S. will be forced to pay a contribution to the International Sea-Bed Authority created by the treaty based on a percentage of its production in the applicable area beyond the 200-mile limit.

While he asserted the argument against this revenue-sharing provision was unconvincing, State Department Legal Advisor William H. Taft IV acknowledged it was an argument that could be made in the course of October 21, 2003 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Taft understates the problem. By any reasonable definition, this provision would for the first time allow a U.N.-affiliated international authority to impose a tax directly on the U.S. for economic activity. At least, I am unaware of any precedent for this kind of international taxing authority. Shoring up the state system, as recommended by former Secretary of State Shultz, means that international institutions should be funded by the voluntary contributions of their member states. The extent to which these international institutions are allowed access to independent streams of revenue is the extent to which they will seek to obtain governing authority at the expense of the state system. While the revenue-sharing provision related to oil and gas production in the Convention is a relatively modest step in this direction, it is still a step in the wrong direction.

Problem #4: Unnecessary Risks to National Security. Proponents of the Convention argue that it promotes U.S. security by codifying a variety of rights to navigate the world’s oceans that are valued by the Navy. While the Navy, quite appropriately, seeks the codification of these rights, it should be pointed out that a significant portion of these rights are already established by a series of four 1958 “Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea” and customary international practice.

On the other hand, the risks to national security posed by the Convention are often understated. For example, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy Mark T. Esper, who testified in favor of the Convention, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in an October 21, 2003, hearing that the mandatory dispute resolution mechanism could be used by states unsympathetic to the U.S. to curtail its military operations even though such operations are supposed to be exempt from the mechanism. This is because it is unclear by the terms of the treaty what activities will be defined as military. While the Bush Administration believes that it will be up to each State Party to determine for itself what activities are military, it is uncertain enough about the issue that it is recommending the U.S. submit a declaration reserving its right to determine which activities are military. Unfortunately, it is not at all certain that a declaration will suffice to protect vital U.S. national security interests. Other states may choose to accept or ignore the declaration, or a future administration may accept the jurisdiction of a tribunal and be surprised if precedent-setting decisions go against U.S. interests. While in the future the Navy may recommend that the U.S. reject a claim of jurisdiction for a tribunal, civilian authorities both inside and outside the Department of Defense may overrule the Navy. Amending the text of the treaty may be the only certain way to protect U.S. interests against overreaching by other states regarding the mandatory dispute resolution mechanism. This is my view, in part, because I am not aware of a precedent for such a mandatory dispute settlement mechanism that could extend to such sensitive areas.

Members of the House of Representatives have a role in the debate over the Convention. The four general shortcomings with the Convention that I have described are derived from a longer list of specific shortcomings in a variety of the specific provisions it contains. While the House of Representatives will not consider the matter of granting consent to ratification, House member should participate in the general debate over the Convention. I believe that House members should take the opportunities that are presented to them to communicate with their Senate colleagues both formally and informally on this matter. Generally, they should point out to the Senate that there is no pressing need for rushing to judgment on ratification. The Convention is a long and complex agreement and an informed judgment on granting consent to ratification will necessarily involve a broad debate in the Senate.

Conclusion. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is a modest step toward the creation of an international sovereign authority unchecked by the governed. Nevertheless, it is a significant one. Given that modern states, including the one envisioned for a united Europe, are the product of a combination of just such steps, it is one the United States should not be taking. Further, the treaty contains a number of specific provisions in such areas as regulation, energy, the environment, national security, and constitutional law that are deeply troubling.

National leaders in Europe seem to aspire to relegating their nations to the status of provinces inside a supranational European authority. In this context, it is not surprising that some outside the United State see this move in the direction of broader authority for international entities, which Secretary Shultz has warned against, as desirable.

As for America’s leaders, they should firmly reject such aspirations for their nation now. Insofar as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea seeks to move the United States in this direction and serves as an indicator of steps yet to come, it poses a danger to the vision America’s fathers had for the nation they founded in 1776.

Mr. Chairman, I again thank you for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy to answer any questions the Committee may have regarding the Convention.

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