Law of the Sea Treaty Doesn't Hold Water

With all the critical problems facing America today, it's hard to see why President George W. Bush is wasting whatever is left of his political capital to partner with Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., to try to get the Senate to ratify the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty.

As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is scheduled to hold a hearing loaded with pro-treaty witnesses and then try to sneak through ratification while the public is focused on other globalism and giveaway mischief.

The Law of the Sea Treaty is the globalists' dream bill. It would put the United States in a de facto world government that rules all the world's oceans under the pretense that they belong to "the common heritage of mankind." That's global-speak for allowing the United Nations and its affiliated organizations to carry out a massive, unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the United States to other countries.

The treaty has already been ratified by 155 countries. Most of them no doubt expect corrupt U.N. bureaucrats to divvy up the riches at the bottom of the sea, which will be brought to the surface by U.S. investment and technology, and parcel them out to Third World dictators to support themselves in the lavish style to which they would like to become accustomed.

Why must those who believe in American sovereignty have to keep fighting the same battles over and over again? President Ronald Reagan rejected the Law of the Sea Treaty in 1982, not because of picky details in the text, but because the treaty would put the United States in the clutches of a supranational ruling clique.

The argument is being made that Reagan's objections were "fixed" in 1994. That's a sham because no one country can legally change the terms of a treaty that has already been signed and ratified by more than 100 countries, and 25 countries have not agreed to the 1994 changes anyway.

Furthermore, changing a few details of the treaty does nothing to address the massive loss of U.S. sovereignty, which Reagan and other Americans found impudent and obnoxious.

The treaty has already created the International Seabed Authority and given it total jurisdiction over all the oceans and everything in them, including "solid, liquid or gaseous mineral resources." The treaty even gives the authority something U.N. bureaucrats have lusted after for years: the authority to impose international taxes (disguised by euphemisms such as fees and royalties).

The treaty would subject our governmental, military and business operations to mandatory dispute resolution by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany. If you think activist judges in the United States are out of control, wait until you try your case before this U.N. tribunal, whose decisions cannot be appealed.

Because several U.S. Supreme Court justices are on record as using, and urging others to use, foreign law in deciding U.S. cases, the treaty would be an open invitation to activist judges in the U.S. to interpret the treaty's purposely vague provisions. Liberal U.S. judges might even develop the theory that the treaty is "evolving" (like liberal notions about the U.S. Constitution), so that liberal social and, especially, environmental biases could be written into U.S. laws.

All Law of the Sea Treaty agencies are U.N. organizations, and the U.N. secretary general plays an important role in administering the treaty. With the U.N.'s shocking track record of corruption, it makes no sense to give it a new infusion of power and money.

The Bush administration argues that the United States needs the treaty to protect U.S. interests in the world's oceans and to ensure that the U.S. Navy can go where it needs to go. The problem with that argument is that if the U.S. signs and ratifies the treaty, America will be bound to abide by its decisions.

Based on U.S. experience in other international organizations such as the World Trade Organization, decisions will usually be contrary to U.S. security and economic interests. The U.S. Navy can already go wherever it needs to go, and it should remain that way.

One of the silliest arguments is that the U.S. needs the treaty to guard against Russian claims to the North Pole and its oil riches. If the United States ratifies the treaty, America would have to accept the treaty tribunal's decision.

Even though the United States already has valid claims to the North Pole region under the Doctrine of Discovery, the chances of the treaty bureaucrats ruling for the United States against Russia are about 1 in 155.

The best protection for U.S. interests in the world's oceans is the U.S. Navy, which should not and must not be subject to orders or regulations made by paper pushers in the International Seabed Authority or rulings of the International Court of Justice. U.S. access to the high seas, as well as freedom of the seas for all countries, is best protected by a great U.S. Navy, not a U.N. bureaucracy financed by a global tax.

U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Lethal to U.S. Navy:

There are several vital economic reasons to oppose United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as an unprecedented redistribution of wealth to oligarchies. However, I want to stress the lethal potential for our Naval forces.

Treaties provide illusions of protection from unreasonable maritime challenges; illusions quickly dispelled by lack of forthright action. Concerning the showdown between U.S. (UNCLOS signed) and P.R.C. (UNCLOS ratified) over the Navy EP-3E, China saw no problem in provoking, and we had no strategy for responding to the incident, notwithstanding UNCLOS and prior treaties defining freedom of the seas. Further antidotal evidence emerges from taking of British (UNCLOS ratified) hostages by Iran (UNCLOS signed). In this day of instantaneous communication, the fact the British captain did not fight his command means senior commanders and politicians, including some masquerading in military uniforms, failed miserably when exerting the authority they had confiscated to protect freedom of the seas. Since Iran is a terrorist state, the first evolutions practiced by Coalition task force units should have been the continuum of actions opposing anticipated Iranian provocations in the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz. One should have expected vigorous resistance to boarding of Iranian vessels in Iraqi waters. This and other Iranian intrigues should have elicited timely, consistent, practiced, lethal and non-lethal military responses. The provisions codify flaccid senior military/political responses by allowing shelter within prospective rulings from an international tribunal, thereby avoiding authorization for immediate, direct action to confront challenges.

The world-changing tragedies of September 2001 make imperative resolution of problems for treaty interpretation against us. Examples would be Articles 19 and 20 defining innocent passage, while within territorial seas, and Article 39 covering duties of ships while transiting straits used for international navigation. Acts prejudicial to peace of a coastal state include launching and landing aircraft, and using undersea craft for mine detection. Also a hostile reading of Articles 19 and 20, says using any electronic device other than navigational radar and Fathometer would be considered an act of propaganda or act aimed at collecting information. In regard to transiting straits used for international navigation, the same devices we need to protect our ships and insure freedom of the seas would be considered threats of force against sovereignty by totalitarian states seeking legal shelter for the piracy and terrorism used to dominate nearby international waters. State Department may assure friendly government relations (remember the U.S.S. Cole), but how many nations can and/or would provide practical sea, air and undersea supremacy guarantees allowing our warships to forgo defensive measures provided by aircraft, boats, sonar, and tactical radars and communication nets?

Supposedly, a “military activities exemption” would allow us to maintain adequate defenses in territorial waters, and straits used for international navigation, and not allow an international tribunal to frustrate Navy operations. Advocates such as Rear Admiral (Retired) W. L. Schachte and Dr. Scott C. Truver provide these assurances. However in their U.S. Naval Institute Preceedings comments, they refer to undefined protocols and not to treaty articles. Substantive, unambiguous protection for our naval operations does not reside within nuanced interpretations of passages or appendices subject to endless legal banter. If meaningful legal protection existed, the treaty would contain priority articles saying such statements as, “notwithstanding subsequent provisions, military activities that naval ships deem necessary to ensure freedom of the seas, and to deter or repel attacks are authorized”.

A new, hostile Council (not the Security Council) should have no problem defining terms to place our ships at risk of terrorism. For every Great Britain and Poland, which might hold one of 36 Council seats, I can name a Mozambique, Syria, Iran or Burma struggling through a new Dark Age where we are described as an economic predator and/or regime threat. We should not rely upon supposed friends either, when Donald Rumsfeld, Tommy Franks, and George Tenet are considered war criminals in Germany, Canada, and Belgium. The Security Council is cut out of the loop, so the veto we needed during the Cold War is not available for issues found within the treaty.

In reading this treaty, I believe you will find latitude in article language allowing this Council to write a massive body of implementing regulations directed against our ships and planes. These articles and regulations will bind our Sailors as they go into a “harms way” largely undefined in this era of violent peace. When something goes wrong, operators on 285 commissioned ships will pay the price, while 290 plus flag officers, Pentagon lawyers, and politicians in Washington D.C. express profound sorrow and outrage, as all bullet proof their resumes.

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