Posted on 08/23/2005 9:22:32 AM PDT by knighthawk
In less than a month's time -- Sept. 16 and 17 -- the world's great and good will be gathering at the United Nations in Manhattan for what is officially called the High Level Plenary Meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. This meeting, attended by the heads of government of most countries, including the major powers, has become a regular event in recent years, but one of ceremonial importance rather than of substance.
This year it will be very significant indeed. For the plenary session will almost certainly pass an obscure document, now circulating in draft form among U.N. delegations, that calls on the assembled governments to reaffirm their support for the U.N.'s Millenium Declaration Goals and the other declarations of U.N. conferences over the last 30 years. It will ask them to support the achievement of these goals in a co-ordinated and integrated manner, to renew their commitment to . . .
Falling asleep already, are you? Well, that is precisely the intention of those who composed these anodyne phrases. When bureaucrats seize power, they do it not with swords but with chloroform. And this document is a power grab by people of whom you have never heard, the officials of the U.N. Secretariat, working in tandem with the diplomats of those countries and international organizations that would like to expand the power of the U.N. and its various agencies.
Its main thrust is to extend the U.N.'s power directly into countries and over the lives of citizens, corporations and private bodies. Most of the language used is mildly benevolent in tone. For instance: "We recognize that development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing and cannot be enjoyed without each other." Sounds nice, doesn't it? Of course, it's not true. China today is enjoying economic development of almost unprecedented rapidity under a government that has only a limited regard for such human rights as free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion.
More dangerous than platitudes are commitments, since the governments signing onto them often have only the vaguest notion of what they imply. Now there are 158 provisions in this document, some of which contain 10 or 12 commitments. So the four commitments that follow offer merely a taste of a truly gargantuan meal. Still, here goes:
1. The section on the environment commits governments to promoting something called "sustainable consumption." Consumption is your standard of living. If that commitment is not mere flapdoodle, it means that a government that endorses it will limit its citizens' standard of living in line with the U.N.'s view of its environmental sustainability. And we all know from other pronouncements that the U.N. and its agencies consider U.S. consumption to be unsustainable.
2. The same section commits governments to undertake "concerted global action" to meet their commitments and obligations under the Kyoto protocol. Well, the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto some years ago -- and earlier this year it rejected Sen. John McCain's legislation that would have introduced Kyoto-style targets and penalties. So which body and set of rules are to govern Americans -- the U.S. Congress and the laws it passes? Or the U.N. and its declarations?
3. The section on human rights calls for "equal participation and representation of men and women in government decision-making bodies." Again, a very nice sentiment but one with a problem. To implement it as the U.N. expects, governments would have to nominate members of Congress. In democracies, however, it is voters rather than governments who choose their representatives -- and they are statistically unlikely to choose a cross section of the population.
4. And at different points the U.N. document calls on governments to accept and implement treaties such as the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty and that establishing the International Criminal Court that the U.S. government, Congress and the administration, has rejected.
What harm is there in signing onto to these desirable outcomes even if we believe that they are either unobtainable or very distant? As scholars like John Fonte of the Hudson Institute have shown, there is very considerable potential harm. These treaties and declarations include enforcement mechanisms such as "monitoring" bodies. Sovereign democratic nations such as Canada have had to host delegations from the U.N. investigating whether their budgetary cuts in welfare violate some commitment they made on welfare rights.
Worse, these commitments change when judges interpret the treaties in a way no one would have predicted when they were signed. A topical example: the British government is currently trying to deport terrorist suspects it considers a danger to the public, but the courts maintain that such deportations are contrary to Britain's signature on the European Declaration of Human Rights.
In other words, the most sensitive and vital political questions are removed from democratic parliaments and the voters and handed over to an international committee nominated by foreign and often despotic regimes.
Yet the U.S. government is under enormous pressure to endorse this catalogue of potential interventions -- not from despots but from its closest democratic friends. The European Union is strongly in favor of transferring power from nation-states to transnational bodies because it is itself a transnational body -- and sees itself as the harbinger of a new sort of transnational political order superior to sovereign nations. And the presidency of the EU is held by Tony Blair, the president's friend and an extreme devotee of "muscular multilateralism."
Blair's pressure is likely to be augmented, moreover, by "realists" in the Bush administration who will argue that opposing the U.N. document is pointless. It will annoy our allies, alienate the international community, and divide America -- all to stop a document that is at best meaningless and at worst utopian.
Such diplomatic trade-offs must sometimes be made. Unfortunately, they never stop with the first one. Some years in the future, when a U.N. committee wants to hold us to our word, or a U.S. court cites the U.N. declaration to overturn domestic law, the same "realists" will argue that fighting this interference is not worth alienating our allies, losing a U.N. vote, or sacrificing some other matter the State Department then thinks vital.
The time to halt this diplomatic rake's progress is now -- and to do so on the principle that Americans are a self-governing people. If Blair is prepared to surrender Britain's democratic sovereignty to a European government or a U.N. committee, that is a matter for him and the British people. American democracy needs no external examiners.
America is fighting terrorism in Iraq. In the words of GW, "America must fight the enemy abroad, so we do not have to face them here at home. By using every available tool to keep the enemy on the run, America's Armed Forces can ensure that terrorists spend their days trying to avoid capture, not planning their next attack."
I know... they're trying to get "sustainable development" through the back door. Most people don't understand that what it means is the government taking control of all the details of our lives.
We already have true "sustainable development" - it's called capitalism!
But isn't Free Trade good for the economy? It increases access to foreign markets which benefit American producers and US companies sell considerably more than before. Also, it is Free Trade which is changing communists countries like China into a more capitalistic one, and with these changes also come social changes. All these doesn't happen in a vacuum, but take time.
= This doesn't happen in a vacuum, but takes time. Yikes, sorry about that.
I think a little public speech about the weaknesses and corruption of the UN might just slow things down a bit.
But I thank you for your post.
Well, just for giggles, what is "free" about "free trade"?
Oh and I didn't say it was bad for at least some businesses. Some of them are getting quite wealthy with the taxpayer subsidzing their movement of capital offshore.
I know you are a thinking person, and think about a centralized trading system that is overseen by a selection of countries that are either socialist, communist or totalitarian dictators. Why should they have anything to say about how America develops its trade and immigration policies? Can you see how this is quite unconstitutional?
No giggles - and I think you know the answer to that.
ping to read later
The answer? "Free trade" frees trade from congress' constitutional authority to regulate it and gives it to an international body.
If the countries involved in free trade enjoy prosperity and greater development, I don't see how this is bad. After all, America's wealth has a lot to do with 100 years of free trade.
However, I know you won't like my answer, so feel free to have the last word.
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