Posted on 06/19/2006 7:37:30 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
The Bush Administration is pushing to create a North American Union out of the work on-going in the Department of Commerce under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in the NAFTA office headed by Geri Word. A key part of the plan is to expand the NAFTA tribunals into a North American Union court system that would have supremacy over all U.S. law, even over the U.S. Supreme Court, in any matter related to the trilateral political and economic integration of the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Right now, Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement allows a private NAFTA foreign investor to sue the U.S. government if the investor believes a state or federal law damages the investor’s NAFTA business.
Under Chapter 11, NAFTA establishes a tribunal that conducts a behind closed-doors “trial” to decide the case according to the legal principals established by either the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes or the UN’s Commission for International Trade Law. If the decision is adverse to the U.S., the NAFTA tribunal can impose its decision as final, trumping U.S. law, even as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. laws can be effectively overturned and the NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunal can impose millions or billions of dollars in fines on the U.S. government, to be paid ultimately by the U.S. taxpayer.
On Aug. 9, 2005, a three-member NAFTA tribunal dismissed a $970 million claim filed by Methanex Corp., a Canadian methanol producer challenging California laws that regulate against the gasoline additive MTBE. The additive MTBE was introduced into gasoline to reduce air pollution from motor vehicle emissions. California regulations restricted the use of MTBE after the additive was found to contaminate drinking water and produce a health hazard. Had the case been decided differently, California’s MTBE regulations would have been overturned and U.S. taxpayers forced to pay Methanex millions in damages.
While this case was decided favorably to U.S. laws, we can rest assured that sooner or later a U.S. law will be overruled by the NAFTA Chapter 11 adjudicative procedure, as long as the determinant law adjudicated by the NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals continues to derive from World Court or UN law. Once a North American Union court structure is in place can almost certainly predict that a 2nd Amendment challenge to the right to bear arms is as inevitable under a North American Union court structure as is a challenge to our 1st Amendment free speech laws. Citizens of both Canada and Mexico cannot freely own firearms. Nor can Canadians or Mexicans speak out freely without worrying about “hate crimes” legislation or other political restrictions on what they may choose to say.
Like it or not, NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals already empower foreign NAFTA investors and corporations to challenge the sovereignty of U.S. law in the United States. Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) has been quoted as saying, “When we debated NAFTA, not a single word was uttered in discussing Chapter 11. Why? Because we didn’t know how this provision would play out. No one really knew just how high the stakes would get.” Again, we have abundant proof that Congress is unbelievably lax when it comes to something as fundamental as reading or understanding the complex laws our elected legislators typically pass.
Under the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) plan expressed in May 2005 for building NAFTA into a North American Union, the stakes are about to get even higher. A task force report titled “Building a North American Community” was written to provide a blueprint for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America agreement signed by President Bush in his meeting with President Fox and Canada’s then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005.
The CFR plan clearly calls for the establishment of a “permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution” as part of the new regional North American Union (NAU) governmental structure that is proposed to go into place in 2010. As the CFR report details on page 22:
The current NAFTA dispute-resolution process is founded on ad hoc panels that are not capable of building institutional memory or establishing precedent, may be subject to conflicts of interest, and are appointed by authorities who may have an incentive to delay a given proceeding. As demonstrated by the efficiency of the World Trade Organization (WTO) appeal process, a permanent tribunal would likely encourage faster, more consistent and more predictable resolution of disputes. In addition, there is a need to review the workings of NAFTA’s dispute-settlement mechanism to make it more efficient, transparent, and effective.
Robert Pastor of American University, the vice chairman of the CFR task force report, provided much of the intellectual justification for the formation of the North American Union. He has repeatedly argued for the creation of a North American Union “Permanent Tribunal on Trade and Investment.” Pastor understands that a “permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.” Notice, Pastor says nothing about U.S. business law or the U.S. Supreme Court. In the view of the globalists pushing toward the formation of the North American Union, the U.S. is a partisan nation-state whose limitations of economic protectionism and provincial self-interest are outdated and as such must be transcended, even if the price involves sacrificing U.S. national sovereignty.
When it comes to the question of illegal immigrants, Pastor’s solution is to erase our borders with Mexico and Canada so we can issue North American Union passports to all citizens. In his testimony to the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 9, 2005, Pastor made this exact argument: “Instead of stopping North Americans on the borders, we ought to provide them with a secure, biometric Border Pass that would ease transit across the border like an E-Z pass permits our cars to speed though toll booths.”
Even Pastor worries about the potential for North American Unions to overturn U.S. laws that he likes. Regarding environmental laws, Pastor’s testimony to the Trilateral Commission in November 2002 was clear on this point: “Some narrowing or clarification of the scope of Chapter 11 panels on foreign investment is also needed to permit the erosion of environmental rules.” Evidently it did not occur to Pastor that the way to achieve the protection he sought was to leave the sovereignty of U.S. and the supremacy of the U.S. Supreme Court intact.
The executive branch under the Bush Administration is quietly putting in place a behind-the-scenes trilateral regulatory scheme, evidently without any direct congressional input, that should provide the rules by which any NAFTA or NAU court would examine when adjudicating NAU trade disputes. The June 2005 report by the SPP working groups organized in the U.S. Department of Commerce, clearly states the goal:
We will develop a trilateral Regulatory Cooperative Framework by 2007 to support and enhance existing, as well as encourage new cooperation among regulators, including at the outset of the regulatory process.
We wonder if the Bush Administration intends to present the Trilateral Regulatory Cooperative Framework now being constructed by SPP.gov to Congress for review in 2007, or will the administration simply continue along the path of knitting together the new NAU regional governmental structure behind closed doors by executive fiat? Ms. Word affirms that the membership of the various SPP working group committees has not been published. Nor have the many memorandums of understanding and other trilateral agreements created by these SPP working groups been published, not even on the Internet.
I guess I agree that the court has jurisdiction because of this clause, to hear cases in which treaties and the constitutional issues are raised, but I do not know if that applies to the substantive interpretation of the supremacy of the treaty clause or the equality of the treaty clause, or the inferiority of the treaty clause vis-a-vis the the Bill of Rights.
For eaxample, did anyone ever say taht if the US ientered into a treawty at the UN that said there could be no possession of firearms (in assumed violation of the 2nd amendment) I assume I could take the issue to the courts to determine if that treaty worked to take my weapon away from me.
But when the court decides between the 2nd Amendment and the treaty, who wins? I would hope that the court would always say that any provision in any treaty that violates any right in the Bill of Rights is void ab initio.
Would Clinton appointees who rely on foreign precedent always rule in favor of the Bill of Rights? Some argue in favor of eliminating the death penalty as a violation of due process that other governments now ban the death penalty. They use foreign precedent to justify their own views on constitutional interpretations.
How much further is the leap to say that the treaty trumps the Bill of Rights?
If they violate the constitution, the only way they could take effect is through an ammendment... which would require 2/3 of the states
Yes, when did they give up professional wrestling?
From your lips...
Come on over and learn what Bush is doing with the CFRs plan.
We have to set up the courts and the legislatures and figure out whom in the secret conspiracy to reveal to the public.
Hey buddy, if you leak any conspirator's name the secret police of NAFTA will arrest you. Under the terms of the secret agreement you are liable to be prosecuted without a trial and without representation.
You nailed that 100%!
LLS
Sen. John Kerry bump
BTTT!
You have to remember that we elected them to follow the rules. The reason we wrote the U.S. Constitution was to create a mechanism to protect our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which we proclaimed before the Constitution was written. If our employees have a problem with that, we'll just have to fire them and replace them with those who have better reading and comprehension skills.
The Constitution is not a charter for tyranny, nor did we surrender the document to our our elected officials. So by what logic or reason do our employees think they can surrender our charter to a foreign power? It does not belong to them. It belongs to We the People -- individually and collectively.
Add me to any ping list for this subject, please. Thx.
Are treaties voted upon by the several States? I thought that applied only to ratification of Constitutional amendments.
What challenges could be filed in this court would be defined, I suppose, by how deep the political integration goes. If it's mainly with regard to trade and other economic matters, we could dodge the bullet, so to speak. If it's more comprehensive, then watch out!
I would think being as stupid as you are would hurt very much indeed.
**lol@self
fridge=fringe
They would take effect first, then the Supreme Court would rule on Constitutionality. And it's 3/4 of the states for an amendment. So, other than those small errors. You're right on track. LOL!
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