Rubber Stamp?

Frontpage Magazine ^ | 9/25/2007 | Frank J. Gaffney

[Paul Ross]

Rubber Stamp?

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
FrontPageMagazine.com | 9/25/2007

Come Thursday, the future of the United States Senate will begin to take shape. On that day, the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee will begin the first of two days of hearings on the ratification of one of the most momentous international agreements in memory: the United Nation’s Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

If all goes according to the proponents’ plan, few Senators will have any idea what LOST entails before they are asked to vote for it. The working assumption is that many legislators will be inclined to do in this case what the Senate has done too often in the past with respect to arms control and many other, complex multinational accords: fail to read the text; forego serious deliberation, let alone debate, about it; and rubber-stamp its approval in a matter of days, if not hours.

At the moment, the Treaty’s supporters expect to secure far more than the needed two-thirds vote required by the Framers. Senators are encouraged not to spend precious time worrying about an accord that the United States Navy strenuously supports, the Bush Administration wants promptly ratified, various mining and energy interests and environmental groups (however implausibly) agree is desirable and the bipartisan Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a couple of years ago.

There will be a special irony, however, if Senators fall prey to this seduction and fail in the weeks ahead rigorously to perform their constitutional responsibility for quality control over treaties: Should they superficially consider, and then consent to, ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, they will be accelerating dramatically the permanent erosion of their own authority – and that of the Congress more generally.

The reason? LOST was designed three decades ago by the Soviet Union and its so-called “non-aligned” allies to foster supranational entities at the expense of nation states, particularly those with representative governments. The Senate of the United States would be as irrelevant to that sort of world order as national parliaments in Europe have already become, thanks to the transfer of virtually all rule-making authority to the European Union’s bureaucrats in Brussels.

The piece of the world in question starts with its oceans, which the Treaty calls an “international commons” and part of “the common heritage of mankind.” The immediate focus of the socialist, redistributionist agenda shared by many of LOST’s principal architects is evident in the mandate given to the organization charged with exercising control over the seas and the resources that lie beneath them. It entails, among other things, ensuring the just and equitable dispersal of the wealth of the seabeds to the world’s developing and land-locked nations.

To accomplish these lofty goals, the Treaty creates entities with all the trappings of a government – an executive, a legislature and a judiciary. Unlike our constitutional republic, however, such institutions are run by the unelected and the unaccountable. This is all the more worrying insofar as the Treaty reposes in one or more of these institutions the authority to: make binding and un-appealable decisions in case of disputes; levy what amount to international taxes; and “protect the marine environment,” a license to engage in unprecedented, sweeping world-wide regulation.

Make no mistake, though. The seas are only the starting point. For one thing, the internal waters and even land masses are claimed as within the jurisdiction of LOST agencies since what emerges from them in the air and water inevitably affects the “marine environment.”

In addition, the UN and its anti-American majorities are keen to establish similar arrangements with respect to other so-called “international commons,” such as Outer Space and the Internet. They seek to institutionalize “self-financing” arrangements (read, international taxes) that will allow supranational organizations to become even less transparent and accountable. They are determined to impose rule-making authority over national governments, including U.S. Senators.

Attributes of the Law of the Sea Treaty such as these prompted Ronald Reagan to oppose its ratification in the 1970s. After he became President, he officially repudiated all but its acceptable navigation provisions (which the U.S. has voluntarily observed ever since). While the Treaty’s proponents profess that President Clinton’s administration “fixed” what Mr. Reagan found objectionable, rigorous congressional scrutiny would confirm the views of such Reaganauts as Attorney General Ed Meese, National Security Advisor Bill Clark, the recently departed Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and LOST negotiator James Malone: This treaty remains irremediably defective.

Starting with Thursday’s GOP presidential candidates debate at American University, those who would occupy the White House next should be asked: Do they stand with President Reagan on the Law of the Sea Treaty, or with President Clinton?

Meanwhile, given the potential for LOST’s arbitral panels and regulatory bodies to infringe massively upon the prerogatives of the Congress – to say nothing of the constitutional rights of millions of Americans – it would seem only natural for myriad Senate (and, fort that matter, House) committees to want to hold their own hearings about this accord. Toward this end, the new, informal Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty has written the Congress’ armed services, intelligence, energy, finance, homeland security, judiciary and environment committees laying out aspects of the Treaty with direct relevance to their respective areas of jurisdiction. (To see these letters, visit www.RejectLOST.org.)

If Senators wish to avoid a fiasco that would make immigration “reform” look like a day at, well, the beach, they better do their job on LOST – or risk losing their jobs.

---

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the founder, president, and CEO of The Center for Security Policy. During the Reagan administration, Gaffney was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy, and a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John Tower (R-Texas). He is a columnist for The Washington Times, Jewish World Review, and Townhall.com and has also contributed to The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, and Newsday.

[Paul Ross]

The money quote as far as I'm concerned:

LOST was designed three decades ago by the Soviet Union and its so-called “non-aligned” allies to foster supranational entities at the expense of nation states, particularly those with representative governments. The Senate of the United States would be as irrelevant to that sort of world order as national parliaments in Europe have already become, thanks to the transfer of virtually all rule-making authority to the European Union’s bureaucrats in Brussels.

[Paul Ross]

The White House is trying to innundate the conservatives with too many issues at once...they are gambling that with Iran, NAFTA, Mexican Trucks, and China getting big ink, they can slip this through...

[kc8ukw]

If you’ve been listen to Michael Savage lately, (and probably others as well), you know this is a bad deal.

[Paul Ross]

You should be aware that this has been back-burnered for precisely these kinds of times...Bush couldn't come out of the closet as the Globalist he really is and get elected. Now as a lame-duck, he can suddenly embrace all sorts of "global tests"...

Meanwhile, we need to carefully assess what real Reaganites recall of the "Man's" opposition to this thing:

Ed Meese: Reagan Would Still Oppose Law of the Sea Treaty

by Edwin Meese III (more by this author)

Posted 04/25/2005 ET
Updated 04/25/2005 ET

The so-called Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is a bad idea whose time should never come up -- at least for the United States and for those who believe in economic liberty and national security. That was the view of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and would remain his view today if he were with us to express it.

The actual title of the treaty is “the United Nation’s Convention on the Law of the Sea.” As its name suggests, it gives to the United Nations, through its subordinate organizations established in the treaty, unprecedented economic powers and expansive authority over the commercial and maritime interests of the nations of the world.

As Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., former Defense Department executive and President of the Center for Security Policy, has stated, “…it is unimaginable that the United States would choose to expand the power and influence of the United Nations at a time when evidence of the latter’s corruption, malfeasance and inherent anti-Americanism is growing by the day.”

How did such an idea get started? It began in the 1970s, when Socialism was still raging and considered by some elitists as “the wave of the future.” The United Nations still wore the mantle of hope. Jimmy Carter claimed that the world’s energy supplies would be diminished in just 20 years. Time spent in our cars waiting for rationed gas gave some the sense that perhaps the world’s resources should be subject to greater regulation.

No doubt that to diplomats in Foggy Bottom or Manhattan’s East Side, the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) that they painstakingly negotiated, complete with its 17 Parts, 320 Articles, and nine Annexes, was the answer to their dreams.

Proponents of this giant step toward world-level bureaucracy probably could not imagine that the new American president, Ronald Reagan, could reject the treaty and fire the people responsible for negotiating it. But he did. LOST was the creature of a negotiation process dominated by the Soviet bloc and the “non-aligned movement.” It placed its hope on the United Nations bureaucracy. And it was out of step with the concepts of economic liberty and free enterprise that Ronald Reagan was to inspire throughout the world. Time has proven President Reagan right.

Less imaginable is that 23 years later LOST is again being seriously considered by a Republican president and a Republican Senate. It was a bad idea in 1982; it is an unconscionable one now as we protect against new enemies and the internationalist whims of our Supreme Court. A 1994 limited agreement pertaining to deep-sea mining, negotiated by the Clinton administration, but not part of the treaty itself does not make the treaty as a whole any more acceptable.

America’s adherence to this treaty would entail history’s biggest transfer of wealth and surrender of sovereignty. LOST vests in the new international entity the power to regulate seven-tenths of the world’s surface area; to impose production quotas for deep-sea mining, oil production and other harvesting; and to regulate ocean research and exploration.

LOST creates a multinational court system to render and enforce its judgments. This is particularly alarming after a majority of the United States Supreme Court, in Roper v. Simmons, included an unratified international convention as justification for the judicial revision of a portion of our Constitution. Soon the high court will decide whether to honor a decision by the International Court of Justice, under another treaty, that would challenge the conviction of 51 convicted felons and murderers in our prisons who are foreign nationals.

Significantly, LOST creates the authority for an international authority to levy taxes against member countries, ultimately to be paid by taxpayers. This brings the world closer to what United Nations bureaucrats have long wanted -- a source of unlimited income.

Most importantly, the treaty was drafted at a time when positions and actions of nations were relatively predictable. But today new enemies are involved. The sorts of at-sea interdiction efforts central to our new Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) would be prohibited under LOST. The treaty effectively prohibits two functions vital to American security: intelligence-collection in, and submerged transit of, foreign territorial waters. Mandatory information-sharing would afford enemies data that could be used to facilitate attacks. Obligatory technology transfers would equip adversaries with sensitive and militarily useful equipment and knowledge.

Why has a bad idea, once thought to be dead, now again raised its ugly head? Unfortunately, misguided internationalists have teamed with unrealistic business interests to support the resurgence of LOST.

Some advocates believe that this giant step toward the rigidity of world government would be beneficial for mankind. They minimize the importance of national sovereignty and the value of free market economic decision-making and individualized business negotiations.

There are those in the American oil industry who believe that an international organization will fairly allocate permits for the exploration and exploitation of undersea deposits and they like the idea that the U.S. taxpayers will pay the associated costs.

But experience and common sense demonstrates that whatever inconvenience and expense may be involved in negotiating drilling rights with individual governments on straight business principles cannot justify the creation of a massive international authority susceptible to ideological pressures and potential corruption.

Moreover, much of what the oil industry needs can be achieved through bilateral treaties and the involvement of the international financing system.

Representatives of the U.S. Navy claim that LOST would provide navigation rights that would benefit our country. But the existing 1958 Law of the Seat Treaty already provides such rights without subjecting our naval forces to the compulsory dispute resolution by a UN tribunal, as required by the new treaty. Indeed, LOST provides the opportunity for legal mischief by those forces, both foreign and domestic, who would seek to limit the Navy’s activities.

In short, LOST is an invitation to trial lawyers and their environmentalist front groups to go international, not only against the private sector but also against our military.

The challenge should be clear for those who would follow the principles and implement the vision of Ronald Reagan. The best interests of the United States and of global freedom and opportunity demand that the Law of the Sea Treaty proposed for ratification be sunk, never to surface again.

Mr. Meese served as counselor to the President and attorney general in the Reagan Administration and is editor of "The Heritage Guide to the Constitution."

[pissant]

From our FreeRepublic Duncan Hunter Interview in August:

#13. Do you support the Law of the Sea Treaty?

Hunter: No, in the past I have opposed the Law of the Sea Treaty. I expect that to continue. There are serious issues of sovereignty involved, and as in the past, I have no intention of letting US sovereignty be eroded.

[ScreamingFist]

LOST.....how appropriately named.......

[Paul Ross]

Indeed. A good man. But, obviously the Establiment feels now is the opportune moment to slip this through. As a Congressman he doesn’t get to vote on this turkey. Its in the lap of the Senate. With a majority of Rats and RINOs.... I fear the worst.

[Madame Dufarge]

Mandatory information-sharing would afford enemies data that could be used to facilitate attacks. Obligatory technology transfers would equip adversaries with sensitive and militarily useful equipment and knowledge.

Especially chilling.

I have no confidence that the current US Senate will be on our side.

[Stingray51]

BTTT

[Edgerunner]

The world is determined to destroy what little freedoms we have left...

[newzjunkey]

BUMP

[Man50D]

I’m sure you have been notified about this topic in the past but I figure it can’t to ping you again.

[Paul Ross]

The world is determined to destroy what little freedoms we have left...

Yes. At least the elites of the World don't want the "little" people to share power over our Republic...and thereby have any say over their Global machinations...

Here is another update from Human Events:

Why LOST Should Be Stopped -- An Interview

by Bill Steigerwald (more by this author)

Posted 09/24/2007 ET
Updated 09/24/2007 ET

Ronald Reagan rejected the United Nations' Convention on the Law of the Sea 25 years ago, but the 202-page treaty generally known by its acronym LOST will not die. Reagan didn't like LOST -- which its conservative critics say would compromise U.S. sovereignty and cede control of the oil, gas and mineral riches of the deepest seabeds to U.N. bureaucrats -- because it was so obviously collectivist, redistributionist, bureaucratic and antithetical to American economic and military interests.

But the Bush administration, the Pentagon and many large mining companies are pushing for the United States to join the 155 countries that have ratified LOST. As Sen. Joe Biden prepares to hold Senate hearings on the Law of the Sea Treaty on Thursday, Sept. 27, we called one of its chief opponents, Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival Inc. to find out why Reagan was right and President Bush is wrong about LOST:

Q: What is the Law of the Sea Treaty?

A: This treaty is the biggest giveaway of American sovereignty and resources since the Panama Canal Treaty. It gives the United Nations bureaucracy control over the oceans of the world -- seven-tenths of the world’s surface. It sets up an International Seabed Authority to decide who gets access to oil, gas and minerals in international waters. The companies that get those rights to harvest those resources have to pay a global tax to the International Seabed Authority.

Q: Where did this treaty come from?

A: This treaty was negotiated and written by socialists and world-government advocates, mainly under the Jimmy Carter administration. It was so bad that President Reagan flatly rejected it.

Q: What does the treaty do that is good or beneficial or necessary?

A: Some people say it guarantees freedom of navigation on the high seas but that is a matter of dispute. The treaty says the oceans have to be reserved for peaceful purposes. That would appear to give the foreign judges who run the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas, another institution set up by this treaty, the authority to decide what is peaceful and what is not. That is why opponents of the treaty fear that it could be used to inhibit and restrict U.S. military activities on the high seas.

Q: Gathering intelligence, opening sea lanes, seizing terrorist -- all of those?

A: All of those activities are potentially at risk and can be seen by these foreign judges as possible violations of the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Q:  Some supporters of the treaty say it contains no mention of a tax at all?

A: They don’t call it a “tax,” that’s true. They call it “fees” or “royalties.” But the money flows to the International Seabed Authority for the right to go after certain gas and oil and mineral deposits. There’s no question about this. The United Nations Association, which is backing the treaty, has described it as providing the first source of independent revenue for the United Nations.

Q: What's the biggest and most important thing wrong with LOST?

A: The biggest thing wrong with it is that it is yet another United Nations project to give the world body more power, authority and influence over world affairs. The idea that the U.N. -- a notoriously corrupt and incompetent body, which squandered billions in the oil-for-food program with Iraq -- should now have jurisdiction over seven-tenths of the world surface, with money coming from American companies, is ludicrous.

Q: But why are the Bush administration, the Pentagon and some mining companies in favor of LOST?

A: I think what is driving support for the treaty is the Navy’s claim that it somehow offers some sort of protection for American interests around the world -- that it solidifies navigational rights on the high seas. But I believe that the Navy has taken this position because of two things: One, the influence of international lawyers in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) offices; and two, the dramatic decline in the number of Navy ships. We have gone from 594 under President Reagan to only 276 today.

I was at a symposium where a State Department official blurted out, candidly, “Oh, we need the Law of the Sea Treaty because we don’t have enough ships anymore to protect American interests." This idea that we should substitute a piece of paper with a U.N. rubber stamp on it for the necessity for building more ships is crazy.

But look at it from the point of view of U.S. corporations that want to get into these international waters and go after the oil, gas and minerals. If the Navy is not going to protect them, then what alternative do they have? They’re following the Navy’s lead in concluding, “Well, I guess we better support this treaty because it’s better than nothing.”

Q: Who is supporting this treaty and why?

A: People who have been pushing this treaty over the years in the Senate include the most liberal members -- not only Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but also Sen. Richard Lugar, the top-ranking Republican on the committee. The people outside of the Senate who have really vigorously been promoting the treaty in addition to those you named are the special interest groups that are associated with the world-government movement.

Q: Given the current makeup of the Senate, is it a done deal that it will be ratified?

A: We are looking at a lot of undecideds on this issue right now. Certainly, supporters of the treaty can count on the liberal Democrats. The question is, “What are Republican conservatives going to do?” … We think a number of conservative Republican senators will end up opposing it. The question is, in the end, will we get the 34 votes to stop it.

Q: What happens if the treaty is not stopped?

A: If it’s not stopped, of course, the process will begin of turning over the resources of the oceans to the United Nations. We will have to hire more international lawyers to defend our interests before all of these foreign judges that run their tribunal and so-called "dispute-resolution" panels. It will be another sign of the decline of the United States and our weakness that we are not the superpower we used to be.

Mr. Steigerwald is a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

[Chode]

B.O.H.I.C.A.!!!

[AuntB]

Once in a while Gaffney hits it out of the park. Some good explanations of the mess that is L.O.S.T.

Let your senator know what you think. www.senate.gov

[Paul Ross]

LOL!

I knew I could count on you for an inference to scatology!

[calcowgirl]

Pretty good history from Gaffney in this video (Reagan’s violent opposition, for one).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCNnyK7RObs

Stop the Bush/Democrat U.N. “Law of the Sea” Treaty
27:39 minutes

Added: April 12, 2007
From: TCCTV
Provided By: TCCTV

President Bush is working with Democrat leaders to bring back from the dead the United Nations “Law of the Sea Treaty”, which would compromise U.S. sovereignty and place 70 percent of the Earth’s surface under the control of the U.N. as well as enact a U.N. global tax. Conservatives and publicans are outraged, and GOP Senators correctly refused to pass this dangerous treaty while they were in the majority. Don’t let Bush and the Democrats pass this dangerous surrender to the United Nations.

In this video, policy expert Frank Gaffney reveals the dangers of the United Nations “Law of the Sea” treaty to your freedom and prosperity, as well as that of our nation.

This is an edition of Conservative Roundtable, the nationally broadcast conservative television program hosted by Howard Phillips, and produced by The Conservative Caucus. Please visit our website: http://www.conservativeusa.org

[calcowgirl]

Three minutes of strong, powerful straight talk from Phyllis Schlafly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beb1YPSUX-c

Added: July 09, 2007
From: cliffietheman

Phyllis Schlafly talks about the Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST)
and how the current administration is trying to bring it back to life.

—
“It is global socialism. It is world government. It is worse than the United Nations... “

[Brad’s Gramma]

http://www.senate.gov

There. Clickable.

And bump the thread for a HORRID idea....

[janetgreen]

Let your senator know what you think. www.senate.gov

BTTT!

It constantly amazes me that there are some Senators who don't even bother to research the implications of the bills they vote on!

Do they consider the future of their children or grandchildren? Do they have functioning brains? It seems not.