WorldNetDaily
December 3, 2007
By Michael Rawlins
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58995
Presently, the Law of the Sea Treaty, derided by critics as "The LOST," is like an encrusted artifact on the ocean floor just waiting to be excavated. Since 1982, it has periodically resurfaced for cloaked Senate committee debate only to re-submerge in the heat of analysis. The salvagers –in this case the U.N. – have the treaty in their sounding crosshairs and merely await U.S. Senate confirmation before officially implementing their oceanic redistribution of wealth from the richer nations, i.e. the U.S., to the smaller ones.
Want proof of this socialist agenda? Just look at Article 82, Section 4, which states that the International Seabed Authority "shall distribute them (payments) to States … on the basis of equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing States, particularly the least developed … among them."
One needs only to go so far as the treaty's preamble to see that it could be used as a Marxist primer, with the words "an important contribution to the maintenance of peace, justice and progress for all peoples of the world." In fact, the 202 pages are filled with socialist code phrases, including "just and equitable economic order," "for the benefit of mankind as a whole" and "the common heritage of mankind."
As a career professional mariner, I recognize the need for free and orderly sea passage. I understand the U.S. military's support of the treaty on the grounds of seeking a legal framework to allow clear transit on, above and below straits. However, the military's tunnel-vision support is based strictly on the "right of innocent passage doctrine" and ignores numerous flaws to their own detriment.
Article 19 outlaws the practice or exercise of any kind of weapons in state territorial waters. What if a naval or commercial ship is boarded by pirates or terrorists in these waters? How can they defend themselves without first having to petition the International Seabed Authority, or ISA? For example, the Bab al-Mandab at the base of the Red Sea and the Malacca Straits in Southeast Asia are current hotspots of piracy. In 2003 alone, there were 445 reported incidents of ship attacks worldwide. Article 20 requires all unmanned vessels – even submarines used for mine detection- to transit territorial waters on the surface.
One tradition the U.N. is attempting to trample upon is the sovereignty of salvagers to bring up valuable artifacts from sunken treasures. Historically, wrecks on the international ocean floor have fallen under the doctrine of "finders, keepers." Private treasure hunters have been outstanding stewards of historical objects and if it weren't for them, they never would have seen the light of day. Now, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the U.N.'s watchdog body, anything more than 100 years old may only be recovered if it can be displayed in a public museum for perpetuity. With a cost of up to $50,000 per day for recovery operations, what is the incentive to find these glorious objects?
Marine scientists should be aware that, should the treaty come to pass, when working in international waters they would be de-facto employees of the U.N. In Article 144, the transfer of technology clause, the ISA has the authority to seize scientific research data and give it to other states under the power of eminent domain.
Article 150, the development of resources clause, allows the U.N. to play Uncle Hugo Chavez to oil and gas drilling companies by charging them a user fee and taxing their profits. The ISA has untrammeled power to socialize the seabed by deciding who it wants to extract resources. This is the equivalent of an international no-bid contract program. Iraq oil-for-food program, anyone? Do the accusations of Haliburton favoritism ring a bell?
Supporters claim it creates a global standard to protect living resources for future generations. However, under the conservation provisions, if nations do not harvest their entire allowable fish stocks within territorial waters, the surplus could be given to other nations, a policy that could result in forced overfishing and depletion of fish stocks.
[THIS 'COMMON HERITAGE OF MANKIND' STANDARD HAS SINCE 1994 EVOLVED INTO THE NEW UNITED NATIONS DOCTRINE OF MALTHUSIAN 'NEGATIVE' SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ARTICULATED IN THE GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND REPORT 'OUR COMMON FUTURE']
On Oct. 31, 2007, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17 to 4 to send the treaty to the full Senate for ratification. Though President Bush is pushing for its approval by year's end, it is not clear when that vote will take place; Spring of '08 appears likely. If it does pass, just know that a small, land-locked nation like Luxemburg and American adversary like Cuba will have as much power over the international seafloor as the U.S. – literally.
Showing posts with label free markets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free markets. Show all posts
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Deep-Six the Law of the Sea
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119550952169298366.html
WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 20, 2007
COMMENTARY
By THOMAS A. BOWDEN
November 20, 2007; Page A18
The Law of the Sea Treaty, which awaits a ratification vote in the U.S. Senate, declares most of the earth's vast ocean floor to be "the common heritage of mankind" and places it under United Nations ownership "for the benefit of mankind as a whole."
This treaty has been bobbing in the legislative ocean for the past 25 years. After President Ronald Reagan refused to sign it in 1982, repeated attempts at ratification have failed. Last month, however, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send it to the full Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to ratify.
What's at stake are trillions of tons of vital minerals such as manganese, nickel, copper, zinc, gold and silver -- enough to supply current needs for thousands of years -- spread over vast seabeds constituting 41% of the planet's area. Senate ratification would signify U.S. agreement that the International Seabed Authority, a U.N. agency based in Jamaica, should own these resources in perpetuity.
Why should we agree to this?
Like any other hard-to-reach resources, these undersea minerals are completely valueless where they now rest. What is it that makes such resources actually valuable? It is the thinking and action of inventors, engineers, explorers and entrepreneurs who devote their mental energy to the task of finding and retrieving them. These undersea pioneers don't just find wealth, they create wealth -- by bringing a portion of nature's bounty under human control.
Despite the treaty's allusion to seabeds as the "common heritage of mankind," mankind as a whole has done exactly nothing to create value in the deep ocean, which is a remote wilderness, virtually unexploited. Under the proposed treaty, however, the ocean mining companies -- whose science, exploration, technology, and entrepreneurship are being counted on to gather otherwise inaccessible riches -- are treated as mere servants of a world collective.
In practice, under the treaty's explicitly socialist approach, mining companies operate as mere licensees who must render hefty application fees as well as continuing payments (read: taxes) and obtain prior approval at every stage of work, under regulations that emerge sluggishly from multinational committees.
Licensees must also enrich a U.N.-operated competitor called, spookily enough, "The Enterprise." For every square mile of ocean bottom a licensee explores, half must be relinquished to The Enterprise, free of charge -- and the Enterprise gets to pick the better half.
Licensees must also make available, on so-called reasonable commercial terms, their technology and know-how, and even train this giant competitor's personnel. At the end of the day, profits from The Enterprise, along with taxes from licensees, are distributed to U.N. member-nations such as Cuba, Uganda and Venezuela, who contribute nothing to the productive process.
[THIS PRINCIPLE HAS SINCE BEEN INCORPORATED INTO THE UNITED NATIONS DOCTRINE OF MALTHUSIAN 'NEGATIVE' SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AS DEFINED BY THE 1987 GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND REPORT]**
The treaty simply assumes as a self-evident truth that wealth sharing is the moral duty of the haves toward the have-nots, and that the world's needy nations have a moral claim on the wealth created by undersea miners. But we should pause to challenge both that moral assumption and its legal implications.
Morally, undersea mining operations are entitled to own outright those portions of the ocean floor they exploit, by virtue of the productive effort they expend. Producers in general are morally entitled to live and work for their own sake, keeping the wealth they create without any moral debt to those who didn't create it. Because nature requires us to be productive in order to live, the businessman's pursuit of profit is properly regarded as a virtue, not a vice indebting him to a hungry planet.
Legally, this viewpoint is embodied in the American ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, secured by private property rights. A historical example of the proper principle in action is the Homestead Act of 1862. Farmers acquired property rights, i.e., private deeds, to 270 million acres of fertile Midwest prairie land by the productive act of farming it, parcel by parcel.
Suppose, instead, that the U.S. government had issued only licenses, not deeds, for the acreage those farmers carved out of wild prairie land. Then suppose the government had transferred half that hard-won acreage to "The Farm," a giant government-owned competitor whose field hands the farmers would be expected to equip and train. Of course, such a travesty would have been unthinkable in the relatively capitalistic 19th century.
Governments today have legitimate options regarding how to deal with undersea explorers' need to establish property rights in the deep ocean. But it would be totally improper for America to declare eternal hostility to private property in the ocean floor by ratifying a treaty dedicated on principle to denying such rights.
Mr. Bowden, a former attorney and law school instructor, is an analyst focusing on legal issues at the Ayn Rand Institute.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 20, 2007
COMMENTARY
By THOMAS A. BOWDEN
November 20, 2007; Page A18
The Law of the Sea Treaty, which awaits a ratification vote in the U.S. Senate, declares most of the earth's vast ocean floor to be "the common heritage of mankind" and places it under United Nations ownership "for the benefit of mankind as a whole."
This treaty has been bobbing in the legislative ocean for the past 25 years. After President Ronald Reagan refused to sign it in 1982, repeated attempts at ratification have failed. Last month, however, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send it to the full Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to ratify.
What's at stake are trillions of tons of vital minerals such as manganese, nickel, copper, zinc, gold and silver -- enough to supply current needs for thousands of years -- spread over vast seabeds constituting 41% of the planet's area. Senate ratification would signify U.S. agreement that the International Seabed Authority, a U.N. agency based in Jamaica, should own these resources in perpetuity.
Why should we agree to this?
Like any other hard-to-reach resources, these undersea minerals are completely valueless where they now rest. What is it that makes such resources actually valuable? It is the thinking and action of inventors, engineers, explorers and entrepreneurs who devote their mental energy to the task of finding and retrieving them. These undersea pioneers don't just find wealth, they create wealth -- by bringing a portion of nature's bounty under human control.
Despite the treaty's allusion to seabeds as the "common heritage of mankind," mankind as a whole has done exactly nothing to create value in the deep ocean, which is a remote wilderness, virtually unexploited. Under the proposed treaty, however, the ocean mining companies -- whose science, exploration, technology, and entrepreneurship are being counted on to gather otherwise inaccessible riches -- are treated as mere servants of a world collective.
In practice, under the treaty's explicitly socialist approach, mining companies operate as mere licensees who must render hefty application fees as well as continuing payments (read: taxes) and obtain prior approval at every stage of work, under regulations that emerge sluggishly from multinational committees.
Licensees must also enrich a U.N.-operated competitor called, spookily enough, "The Enterprise." For every square mile of ocean bottom a licensee explores, half must be relinquished to The Enterprise, free of charge -- and the Enterprise gets to pick the better half.
Licensees must also make available, on so-called reasonable commercial terms, their technology and know-how, and even train this giant competitor's personnel. At the end of the day, profits from The Enterprise, along with taxes from licensees, are distributed to U.N. member-nations such as Cuba, Uganda and Venezuela, who contribute nothing to the productive process.
[THIS PRINCIPLE HAS SINCE BEEN INCORPORATED INTO THE UNITED NATIONS DOCTRINE OF MALTHUSIAN 'NEGATIVE' SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AS DEFINED BY THE 1987 GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND REPORT]**
The treaty simply assumes as a self-evident truth that wealth sharing is the moral duty of the haves toward the have-nots, and that the world's needy nations have a moral claim on the wealth created by undersea miners. But we should pause to challenge both that moral assumption and its legal implications.
Morally, undersea mining operations are entitled to own outright those portions of the ocean floor they exploit, by virtue of the productive effort they expend. Producers in general are morally entitled to live and work for their own sake, keeping the wealth they create without any moral debt to those who didn't create it. Because nature requires us to be productive in order to live, the businessman's pursuit of profit is properly regarded as a virtue, not a vice indebting him to a hungry planet.
Legally, this viewpoint is embodied in the American ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, secured by private property rights. A historical example of the proper principle in action is the Homestead Act of 1862. Farmers acquired property rights, i.e., private deeds, to 270 million acres of fertile Midwest prairie land by the productive act of farming it, parcel by parcel.
Suppose, instead, that the U.S. government had issued only licenses, not deeds, for the acreage those farmers carved out of wild prairie land. Then suppose the government had transferred half that hard-won acreage to "The Farm," a giant government-owned competitor whose field hands the farmers would be expected to equip and train. Of course, such a travesty would have been unthinkable in the relatively capitalistic 19th century.
Governments today have legitimate options regarding how to deal with undersea explorers' need to establish property rights in the deep ocean. But it would be totally improper for America to declare eternal hostility to private property in the ocean floor by ratifying a treaty dedicated on principle to denying such rights.
Mr. Bowden, a former attorney and law school instructor, is an analyst focusing on legal issues at the Ayn Rand Institute.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The US Should Reject the UN Law of the Sea Treaty
http://www.coin.dk/default.asp?aid=1406
By Simon Espersen,
Candidate, Political Science,
Administrative Director, Copenhagen Institute, Denmark
October 28, 2007
The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea that, allegedly sets up a system to manage navigation and explore the oceans should be firmly rejected by the US senate, if it is put to the vote.
For the moment the Senate foreign relations committee is, according to the British newspaper the Guardian (October 25), likely to approve the treaty during the coming week. If this happens two-thirds of a full Senate chamber must then vote in favor to ensure US ratification.
But doing so would be a disastrous and harmful political act. The United Nations is an institution that should have been abolished many decades ago. Any ratification of UN laws are therefore equivalent of policy, that enhance the power of a corrupt institution even more - to the detriment of all freedom loving people.
Anti-freedom and anti-reason-states as members of the UN
Any moral institution must be based on moral values. But the United Nations is based on the opposite: these are "values" that invite every kind of regime to participate in policymaking, no matter whether it is a communist dictatorship; a theocracy; some populist regime ruled by a “junta” or by some charismatic cult figure. They are all there - in the UN.
These un-free states are in fact in the UN exactly because of a "UN-value", which is the tolerance of what is malevolent: In the UN there are in accordance with the tolerance for dictatorships and collectivism no respect for the values that allow men to be free; to use their minds freely; and to prosper in doing so.
The "UN-tolerance" does simply not allow defending the values of freedom and reason that have to be upheld by the defense for private property rights, the freedom of information and all the other individual freedoms that has ensured the wealth of the west. This is why it is very disconcerting, that there is to be voted on a law of such a disreputable institution as the UN in the United States in particular, where the respect for the freedoms of the individual and upholding private property rights historically have been quite entrenched.
The environmentalism of the UN
The tolerance of anti-reason and anti-freedom is nevertheless not only to be observed in the all-inclusive approach toward membership of the UN, including the free participation of representatives of these un-free states in the workings of the UN. The same kind of tolerance of non-reason and non-science may be found in a newer phenomenon which is “environmentalism”.
Environmentalism may be described as the idea that all existing species have a value-in-them-self; and furthermore that the existing state of affairs with respect to nature should be kept in a sort of stasis or at “best”: that man changing the environment to suit his own needs should be a phenomenon that is “rolled back” and for some environmentalists should even be reversed.
- This is what “conservation” is all about; and the increasing strength of conservationism may be observed in the fact that a greater part of the planet is selected by institutions such as the UN for “conservation” and “preservation” to the detriment of the needs of human beings.
Why are old-time leftwing dictatorships, Islamic theocracies and the green movement then to be found in the same global institution? The obvious answer is that there is a common enemy: The shared-in "value" in the tolerance of anti-reason and anti-freedom, that make the various participants who are to be found in the UN stay there has also a common opponent, and that is precisely the value of the freedom of the individual, that is also the freedom to use ones mind to improve on ones own life (and thus the freedom to change ones surroundings in the process).
The system that ensures such freedoms is the system of capitalism. And anyone who studies the UN dutifully will not be able to conclude that it is not for the market economy but is in fact an institution working against it.
The environmentalists are therefore opposed to and fighting the same thing that the older type of actors in the institution are combating as well; and that is the freedom of people in the pursuit of happiness and wealth. Fortunately no matter what the US senate will be voting, the goals and aspirations of individuals who understand that reason, freedom and the institution of private property is a precondition to living and improving on ones own life will not disappear alongside any disgraceful voting behavior on behalf of the US Senate.
By Simon Espersen,
Candidate, Political Science,
Administrative Director, Copenhagen Institute, Denmark
October 28, 2007
The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea that, allegedly sets up a system to manage navigation and explore the oceans should be firmly rejected by the US senate, if it is put to the vote.
For the moment the Senate foreign relations committee is, according to the British newspaper the Guardian (October 25), likely to approve the treaty during the coming week. If this happens two-thirds of a full Senate chamber must then vote in favor to ensure US ratification.
But doing so would be a disastrous and harmful political act. The United Nations is an institution that should have been abolished many decades ago. Any ratification of UN laws are therefore equivalent of policy, that enhance the power of a corrupt institution even more - to the detriment of all freedom loving people.
Anti-freedom and anti-reason-states as members of the UN
Any moral institution must be based on moral values. But the United Nations is based on the opposite: these are "values" that invite every kind of regime to participate in policymaking, no matter whether it is a communist dictatorship; a theocracy; some populist regime ruled by a “junta” or by some charismatic cult figure. They are all there - in the UN.
These un-free states are in fact in the UN exactly because of a "UN-value", which is the tolerance of what is malevolent: In the UN there are in accordance with the tolerance for dictatorships and collectivism no respect for the values that allow men to be free; to use their minds freely; and to prosper in doing so.
The "UN-tolerance" does simply not allow defending the values of freedom and reason that have to be upheld by the defense for private property rights, the freedom of information and all the other individual freedoms that has ensured the wealth of the west. This is why it is very disconcerting, that there is to be voted on a law of such a disreputable institution as the UN in the United States in particular, where the respect for the freedoms of the individual and upholding private property rights historically have been quite entrenched.
The environmentalism of the UN
The tolerance of anti-reason and anti-freedom is nevertheless not only to be observed in the all-inclusive approach toward membership of the UN, including the free participation of representatives of these un-free states in the workings of the UN. The same kind of tolerance of non-reason and non-science may be found in a newer phenomenon which is “environmentalism”.
Environmentalism may be described as the idea that all existing species have a value-in-them-self; and furthermore that the existing state of affairs with respect to nature should be kept in a sort of stasis or at “best”: that man changing the environment to suit his own needs should be a phenomenon that is “rolled back” and for some environmentalists should even be reversed.
- This is what “conservation” is all about; and the increasing strength of conservationism may be observed in the fact that a greater part of the planet is selected by institutions such as the UN for “conservation” and “preservation” to the detriment of the needs of human beings.
Why are old-time leftwing dictatorships, Islamic theocracies and the green movement then to be found in the same global institution? The obvious answer is that there is a common enemy: The shared-in "value" in the tolerance of anti-reason and anti-freedom, that make the various participants who are to be found in the UN stay there has also a common opponent, and that is precisely the value of the freedom of the individual, that is also the freedom to use ones mind to improve on ones own life (and thus the freedom to change ones surroundings in the process).
The system that ensures such freedoms is the system of capitalism. And anyone who studies the UN dutifully will not be able to conclude that it is not for the market economy but is in fact an institution working against it.
The environmentalists are therefore opposed to and fighting the same thing that the older type of actors in the institution are combating as well; and that is the freedom of people in the pursuit of happiness and wealth. Fortunately no matter what the US senate will be voting, the goals and aspirations of individuals who understand that reason, freedom and the institution of private property is a precondition to living and improving on ones own life will not disappear alongside any disgraceful voting behavior on behalf of the US Senate.
EU HIDES BEHIND ‘PRIVATE’ STANDARDS EFFORT TO SECURE GLOBAL REGULATORY CONTROL
October 22, 2007
Developing Countries May Have New Grounds to Bring WTO Actions Against Europe
Princeton, NJ – October 9, 2007 – In the current issue of the Global Trade and Customs Journal, international trade and regulatory lawyer Lawrence Kogan details how the European Union and its member states previously enlisted private European environmental standards bodies to promote official government sustainable forest management policies that likely violated the World Trade Organization rights of developing countries and their industries.
In addition, the article describes how these same EU governments are behind the ongoing efforts of other European pressure groups to promote, via United Nations agencies and international standardization organizations, the adoption by global industry supply chains of overly strict corporate social responsibility standards.
According to Mr. Kogan, “It is no secret that the EU aspires to ‘usurp America’s role as a source of global standards’, and to become ‘the world’s regulatory capital’ and ‘standard-bearer’”. Therefore, it is natural that they would endeavor to employ whatever nontransparent means are available to push their regulatory control agenda forward.” As EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson claimed in a prior speech, ‘exporting our rules and standards around the world is one source [and expression] of European power’”.
Two recent articles appearing in the Financial Times and the Economist confirm this assessment. “The Commission, the EU’s executive body, states openly that it wants other countries to follow EU rules and its officials are working hard to put that vision into practice...[T]he Union [has]... a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages - a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life and that is constantly expanded and updated. Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU’s rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health [sustainable development] requirements are concerned”.
The European regulatory model is worrisome, emphasizes Kogan, paraphrasing from one article, especially “because ‘it rests on the [standard-of-proof-diminishing, burden-of-proof-reversing, guilty-until-proven-innocent, I-fear-therefore-I-shall-ban, hazard-(not risk)-based] Precautionary Principle’, which is inconsistent with both WTO law and US constitutionally-guaranteed private property rights”. As another article reaffirms, “In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws...reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless...[T]he philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed until it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else.”
“Notwithstanding its knowledge of Europe’s extraterritorial activities”, warns Kogan, “the 110th US Congress may soon ratify the UN Law of the Sea Convention without all of its committees possessing oversight jurisdiction having first adequately reviewed in public hearings its 45-plus environmental regulatory articles - which also incorporate Europe’s Precautionary Principle!
This would essentially open up the floodgates to a tsunami of costly non-science and non-economics-based environmental laws, regulations and standards that would abridge Americans’ Fifth Amendment rights, impair U.S. industry’s global economic competitiveness and fundamentally reshape the American legal and free enterprise systems.
The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is a non-partisan non-profit international legal research and educational organization that examines international law relating to trade, industry and positive sustainable development around the world. This ITSSD study and related materials are accessible online at:
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints%20KOGAN%20-%20Discerning%20the%20Forest%20from%20the%20Trees.pdf
http://www.itssd.org/Programs/ITSSDAssessmentISO26000Standard.pdf
Developing Countries May Have New Grounds to Bring WTO Actions Against Europe
Princeton, NJ – October 9, 2007 – In the current issue of the Global Trade and Customs Journal, international trade and regulatory lawyer Lawrence Kogan details how the European Union and its member states previously enlisted private European environmental standards bodies to promote official government sustainable forest management policies that likely violated the World Trade Organization rights of developing countries and their industries.
In addition, the article describes how these same EU governments are behind the ongoing efforts of other European pressure groups to promote, via United Nations agencies and international standardization organizations, the adoption by global industry supply chains of overly strict corporate social responsibility standards.
According to Mr. Kogan, “It is no secret that the EU aspires to ‘usurp America’s role as a source of global standards’, and to become ‘the world’s regulatory capital’ and ‘standard-bearer’”. Therefore, it is natural that they would endeavor to employ whatever nontransparent means are available to push their regulatory control agenda forward.” As EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson claimed in a prior speech, ‘exporting our rules and standards around the world is one source [and expression] of European power’”.
Two recent articles appearing in the Financial Times and the Economist confirm this assessment. “The Commission, the EU’s executive body, states openly that it wants other countries to follow EU rules and its officials are working hard to put that vision into practice...[T]he Union [has]... a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages - a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life and that is constantly expanded and updated. Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU’s rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health [sustainable development] requirements are concerned”.
The European regulatory model is worrisome, emphasizes Kogan, paraphrasing from one article, especially “because ‘it rests on the [standard-of-proof-diminishing, burden-of-proof-reversing, guilty-until-proven-innocent, I-fear-therefore-I-shall-ban, hazard-(not risk)-based] Precautionary Principle’, which is inconsistent with both WTO law and US constitutionally-guaranteed private property rights”. As another article reaffirms, “In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws...reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless...[T]he philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed until it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else.”
“Notwithstanding its knowledge of Europe’s extraterritorial activities”, warns Kogan, “the 110th US Congress may soon ratify the UN Law of the Sea Convention without all of its committees possessing oversight jurisdiction having first adequately reviewed in public hearings its 45-plus environmental regulatory articles - which also incorporate Europe’s Precautionary Principle!
This would essentially open up the floodgates to a tsunami of costly non-science and non-economics-based environmental laws, regulations and standards that would abridge Americans’ Fifth Amendment rights, impair U.S. industry’s global economic competitiveness and fundamentally reshape the American legal and free enterprise systems.
The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is a non-partisan non-profit international legal research and educational organization that examines international law relating to trade, industry and positive sustainable development around the world. This ITSSD study and related materials are accessible online at:
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints%20KOGAN%20-%20Discerning%20the%20Forest%20from%20the%20Trees.pdf
http://www.itssd.org/Programs/ITSSDAssessmentISO26000Standard.pdf
Protecting Our National Sovereignty – Senator John Cornyn// Mike Huckabee denounces U.N. Power Grab
http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ForPress.TexasTimesWeeklyColumn&ContentRecord_id=c7ede392-802a-23ad-49c9-c0817d355fb4&Region_id=&Issue_id
Protecting Our National Sovereignty
By U.S. Senator John Cornyn
Our state and our country are struggling to keep up with the effects of globalization—the increasingly free flow of ideas, information, goods and capital across borders and around the world.
One major challenge is making certain that our national sovereignty is protected, even as international commerce increases. This is no small matter. Our sovereignty is the foundation for our freedom.
Sovereignty should rest strictly with the American people. We cannot allow a foreign country or an international organization to make decisions that should be our own exclusive province, based on our own national interests.
The U.S. Senate is currently debating the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), a document that I believe poses a threat to these concepts. The treaty has been signed by 155 countries. But President Reagan rejected it in 1982, and the Senate refused to ratify a different version approved by President Clinton in 1994. Now it’s back.
LOST sets up an international bureaucracy under the United Nations that would control the world’s oceans and everything in them as “the common heritage of mankind.” Any revenues produced by exploiting resources, such as oil discovered in international waters, would be allocated and divided by international tribunals.
LOST agencies would have authority to levy royalties and fees—effectively the first international tax. Some critics believe the treaty would lead to decisions by an international tribunal regulating the environment, not only in the ocean but all over the globe.
The Bush Administration is pushing the Senate to ratify the treaty this time. It’s needed to ensure that our Navy can navigate anywhere, it says, and to protect our ability to share in undersea resources, such as petroleum that might be found under the Arctic Circle.
In my view, our historical experience with international organizations has not been satisfactory. We are often outvoted, without good cause. The United Nations has earned a dismal and deteriorating record for corruption, highlighted by complicity in the largest fraud in history, the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. More recently, the U.N. has been accused of tolerating bribe s and kickbacks in dispensing aid to tsunami victims in Southeast Asia.
U.N. efforts have been particularly ineffectual in resolving real conflicts. I believe the best insurance for orderly management of the high seas—and effective protection of U.S. sovereign interests—is a strong U.S. Navy. This concept has served us well for 200 years.
* * *
In mid-October, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a criminal case from Texas that poses yet another threat to our sovereignty. The case involved Jose Ernesto Medellin, a foreign citizen convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 in the brutal rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston.
Long after his sentence was final, Medellin’s lawyers came up with a new appeal point. They argued that because Medellin was not a U.S. citizen, and under the Vienna Convention the Mexican consulate should have been notified when he was arrested, his appeal should be reopened. This argument was accepted in 2004 by a foreign tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Medellin was indeed born in Mexico, but lived in the U.S. most of his life. He speaks, reads and writes English, and attended U.S. schools. Disappointingly, the Bush Administration has issued a directive to Texas officials attempting to enforce the foreign court’s judgment, and also backed Medellin’s side at the U.S. Supreme Court.
I have argued that the President lacks constitutional authority to direct Texas to reopen Medellin’s conviction. In my opinion, the President cannot by himself tr ansform an international treaty, and especially a foreign court’s judgment, into domestic law.
* * *
In recent years, some Supreme Court Justices have shown a willingness to cite the law of other countries as support for their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. That’s yet another unwelcome trend, in my opinion.
The U.S. constitutional system is the product of our unique American experience. It has produced the most successful country in history, a nation that has been “the shining city on the hill” to the rest of the world.
We should do everything possible to protect that legacy. The world depends upon our leadership.
Sen. Cornyn serves on the Armed Services, Judiciary and Budget Committees. In addition, he is Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. He serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Border Security and Refugees subcommittee and the Armed Services Committee’s Airland subcommittee. Cornyn served previously as Texas Attorney General, Texas Supreme Court Justice and Bexar County District Judge
******************************
Press Release: Mike Huckabee denounces U.N. Power Grab
Challenges Republican Candidates to Join Him in Opposing LOST
October 09, 2007
(Detroit, Michigan) On the eve of tonight’s GOP debate in Michigan, Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee joined Ronald Reagan in opposition to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea – better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). He called on his rivals for the nomination to join him in rejecting a treaty that would surrender control of seven-tenths of the world’s surface – its oceans – to a UN-affiliated organization. Gov. Huckabee declared today:
“The Law of the Sea Treaty is one of the defining issues of our time. Are we in favor of increasing the power and authority of the United Nations and its subsidiaries at the expense of American sovereignty and vital interests? Or are we opposed to world government, particularly the one envisioned by LOST, charged with implementing a hopelessly outdated and counterproductive socialist and redistributionist agenda from the 1970s? Republicans – starting with their presidential candidates – should stand with Ronald Reagan in rejecting the Law of the Sea Treaty, its threat to our sovereignty and its socialist agenda.”
Gov. Huckabee noted that two of President Reagan’s closest associates – his National Security Advisor, William P. Clark, and his Attorney General Edwin Meese – yesterday published an op.ed. article in the Wall Street Journal making clear the basis of President Reagan’s rejection of the Law of the Sea Treaty.
“Proponents of LOST want us to believe that Ronald Reagan would have supported ratification of this treaty with some tinkering at the margins. In fact, as Judge Clark and General Meese have made clear, Mr. Reagan recognized that the central concept behind this treaty – a supranational government with the authority to determine what can and cannot be done on, beneath and even above the seas – was not in America’s interests.”
Gov. Huckabee objected to the fact that the U.S. Senate is poised to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty with only one committee – the Foreign Relations Committee – having held hearings on it during this session of Congress and only two witnesses opposed to ratification being afforded the opportunity to testify. He noted that as many as eight other Senate committees have jurisdiction over areas affected by the Treaty and urged them to engage in rigorous oversight before any action is taken by the full Senate.
Gov. Huckabee called on his rivals for the GOP nomination to use the present campaign as an opportunity to educate the American people about LOST and to join him in making clear that, like Ronald Reagan, they will not submit U.S. sovereignty to a UN on steroids.
Protecting Our National Sovereignty
By U.S. Senator John Cornyn
Our state and our country are struggling to keep up with the effects of globalization—the increasingly free flow of ideas, information, goods and capital across borders and around the world.
One major challenge is making certain that our national sovereignty is protected, even as international commerce increases. This is no small matter. Our sovereignty is the foundation for our freedom.
Sovereignty should rest strictly with the American people. We cannot allow a foreign country or an international organization to make decisions that should be our own exclusive province, based on our own national interests.
The U.S. Senate is currently debating the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), a document that I believe poses a threat to these concepts. The treaty has been signed by 155 countries. But President Reagan rejected it in 1982, and the Senate refused to ratify a different version approved by President Clinton in 1994. Now it’s back.
LOST sets up an international bureaucracy under the United Nations that would control the world’s oceans and everything in them as “the common heritage of mankind.” Any revenues produced by exploiting resources, such as oil discovered in international waters, would be allocated and divided by international tribunals.
LOST agencies would have authority to levy royalties and fees—effectively the first international tax. Some critics believe the treaty would lead to decisions by an international tribunal regulating the environment, not only in the ocean but all over the globe.
The Bush Administration is pushing the Senate to ratify the treaty this time. It’s needed to ensure that our Navy can navigate anywhere, it says, and to protect our ability to share in undersea resources, such as petroleum that might be found under the Arctic Circle.
In my view, our historical experience with international organizations has not been satisfactory. We are often outvoted, without good cause. The United Nations has earned a dismal and deteriorating record for corruption, highlighted by complicity in the largest fraud in history, the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. More recently, the U.N. has been accused of tolerating bribe s and kickbacks in dispensing aid to tsunami victims in Southeast Asia.
U.N. efforts have been particularly ineffectual in resolving real conflicts. I believe the best insurance for orderly management of the high seas—and effective protection of U.S. sovereign interests—is a strong U.S. Navy. This concept has served us well for 200 years.
* * *
In mid-October, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a criminal case from Texas that poses yet another threat to our sovereignty. The case involved Jose Ernesto Medellin, a foreign citizen convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 in the brutal rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston.
Long after his sentence was final, Medellin’s lawyers came up with a new appeal point. They argued that because Medellin was not a U.S. citizen, and under the Vienna Convention the Mexican consulate should have been notified when he was arrested, his appeal should be reopened. This argument was accepted in 2004 by a foreign tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Medellin was indeed born in Mexico, but lived in the U.S. most of his life. He speaks, reads and writes English, and attended U.S. schools. Disappointingly, the Bush Administration has issued a directive to Texas officials attempting to enforce the foreign court’s judgment, and also backed Medellin’s side at the U.S. Supreme Court.
I have argued that the President lacks constitutional authority to direct Texas to reopen Medellin’s conviction. In my opinion, the President cannot by himself tr ansform an international treaty, and especially a foreign court’s judgment, into domestic law.
* * *
In recent years, some Supreme Court Justices have shown a willingness to cite the law of other countries as support for their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. That’s yet another unwelcome trend, in my opinion.
The U.S. constitutional system is the product of our unique American experience. It has produced the most successful country in history, a nation that has been “the shining city on the hill” to the rest of the world.
We should do everything possible to protect that legacy. The world depends upon our leadership.
Sen. Cornyn serves on the Armed Services, Judiciary and Budget Committees. In addition, he is Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. He serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Border Security and Refugees subcommittee and the Armed Services Committee’s Airland subcommittee. Cornyn served previously as Texas Attorney General, Texas Supreme Court Justice and Bexar County District Judge
******************************
Press Release: Mike Huckabee denounces U.N. Power Grab
Challenges Republican Candidates to Join Him in Opposing LOST
October 09, 2007
(Detroit, Michigan) On the eve of tonight’s GOP debate in Michigan, Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee joined Ronald Reagan in opposition to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea – better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). He called on his rivals for the nomination to join him in rejecting a treaty that would surrender control of seven-tenths of the world’s surface – its oceans – to a UN-affiliated organization. Gov. Huckabee declared today:
“The Law of the Sea Treaty is one of the defining issues of our time. Are we in favor of increasing the power and authority of the United Nations and its subsidiaries at the expense of American sovereignty and vital interests? Or are we opposed to world government, particularly the one envisioned by LOST, charged with implementing a hopelessly outdated and counterproductive socialist and redistributionist agenda from the 1970s? Republicans – starting with their presidential candidates – should stand with Ronald Reagan in rejecting the Law of the Sea Treaty, its threat to our sovereignty and its socialist agenda.”
Gov. Huckabee noted that two of President Reagan’s closest associates – his National Security Advisor, William P. Clark, and his Attorney General Edwin Meese – yesterday published an op.ed. article in the Wall Street Journal making clear the basis of President Reagan’s rejection of the Law of the Sea Treaty.
“Proponents of LOST want us to believe that Ronald Reagan would have supported ratification of this treaty with some tinkering at the margins. In fact, as Judge Clark and General Meese have made clear, Mr. Reagan recognized that the central concept behind this treaty – a supranational government with the authority to determine what can and cannot be done on, beneath and even above the seas – was not in America’s interests.”
Gov. Huckabee objected to the fact that the U.S. Senate is poised to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty with only one committee – the Foreign Relations Committee – having held hearings on it during this session of Congress and only two witnesses opposed to ratification being afforded the opportunity to testify. He noted that as many as eight other Senate committees have jurisdiction over areas affected by the Treaty and urged them to engage in rigorous oversight before any action is taken by the full Senate.
Gov. Huckabee called on his rivals for the GOP nomination to use the present campaign as an opportunity to educate the American people about LOST and to join him in making clear that, like Ronald Reagan, they will not submit U.S. sovereignty to a UN on steroids.
Lou Dobbs / CNN, Dobbs: Beware the Lame Duck
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/16/Dobbs.Oct17/?iref=mpstoryview
Story Highlights Dobbs blasts Bush as a "neo-liberal"
Dobbs says U.S. shouldn't agree to U.N.'s Law of the Sea TreatyDobbs:
"This administration can do nothing straightforwardly"Lou Dobbs' commentary appears weekly on CNN.com.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Diehard GOP faithful, the dwindling number of Bush loyalists and political pundits of every stripe and medium seem obsessed these days with defining or discerning the "legacy of George W. Bush."
Frankly, I spend more time worrying about whether or not the United States can survive the remaining 15 months of his ebbing presidency.There is little mystery about what future historians will consider to be the legacy of the 43rd president of the United States. Those historians are certain to describe the first presidential administration of the 21st century with terms such as dissipation and perversion.
Bush campaigned for the Republican Party's nomination eight years ago, styling himself as a compassionate conservative. He's amply demonstrated that he is neither.Although many conservatives refuse to accept the reality, George W. Bush is a one-world neo-liberal who drove budget and trade deficits to record heights while embracing faith-based economic policies that perversely require only blind allegiance to free markets and free trade, without regard for consequence.
This president pursues a war without demanding of his generals either success or victory and accepts the sacrifice of our brave young men and women in uniform while asking nothing of our people or the nation at a time of war.Sadly, this president has diminished a great nation and may diminish it further.President Bush has pressed hard for the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the first step toward a North American Union that will threaten our sovereignty.
This administration has permitted American businesses to hire illegal aliens, encouraged the invasion of 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and has given Mexico and corporate America dominion over our borders and our immigration policy.Were it not for an outraged public, the Bush administration would have been happy to cede control of our ports to a Dubai government-owned company.
The assault on our national sovereignty continues: At a time when public approval of the White House and Congress is near historic lows, the president is urging the Senate to act favorably on our accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. One hundred fifty-five nations have ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty, which essentially codifies into law detailed rules about freedom of the seas and the extent of territorial waters. The treaty also establishes an international bureaucracy to regulate deep-sea mining.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently heard arguments on the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, which President Ronald Reagan rejected but President Bill Clinton submitted to the Senate in 1994. A vote is likely in the weeks ahead, and this Democratic-controlled Senate is the same institution whose leadership sought passage of the disastrous comprehensive immigration overhaul legislation.And just as this administration trotted out an Army general to support the Dubai Ports World fiasco and a Marine Corps general to support the administration's immigration proposal, it's now pressured the U.S. Navy to support this treaty.
Bush says the treaty "will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain." The president could not be more wrong. This treaty will submit the United States to international tribunals largely adverse to our interests, and the dispute resolution mechanisms are stacked against the United States. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, astutely argues that nearly all the signatories "have voted against the United States over half the time [at the United Nations].
"This administration can do nothing straightforwardly and perverts language at every turn. Take, for example, the words of Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arguing in support of the treaty. "As a non-party," he argues, "We are not currently in a position to maximize U.S. sovereign rights over the shelf in the Arctic or elsewhere."
Negroponte's tortured reasoning is entirely consistent with this administration's intellectual performance over almost two terms in office, but it serves neither the truth nor the national interest.
The Law of the Sea Treaty would undermine our national sovereignty and act as a back door for global environmental activists to direct U.S. policy. It would hold the United States to yet another unaccountable international bureaucracy and constrain our national prerogatives. Aside from that, the treaty is wholly unnecessary. The U.S. Navy already enjoys international navigation rights by customary practice.
Our elected officials in both political parties and the national media should worry less about the legacy of this lame-duck president and far more about the future of a great nation and people debilitated by his ruinous leadership.
Story Highlights Dobbs blasts Bush as a "neo-liberal"
Dobbs says U.S. shouldn't agree to U.N.'s Law of the Sea TreatyDobbs:
"This administration can do nothing straightforwardly"Lou Dobbs' commentary appears weekly on CNN.com.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Diehard GOP faithful, the dwindling number of Bush loyalists and political pundits of every stripe and medium seem obsessed these days with defining or discerning the "legacy of George W. Bush."
Frankly, I spend more time worrying about whether or not the United States can survive the remaining 15 months of his ebbing presidency.There is little mystery about what future historians will consider to be the legacy of the 43rd president of the United States. Those historians are certain to describe the first presidential administration of the 21st century with terms such as dissipation and perversion.
Bush campaigned for the Republican Party's nomination eight years ago, styling himself as a compassionate conservative. He's amply demonstrated that he is neither.Although many conservatives refuse to accept the reality, George W. Bush is a one-world neo-liberal who drove budget and trade deficits to record heights while embracing faith-based economic policies that perversely require only blind allegiance to free markets and free trade, without regard for consequence.
This president pursues a war without demanding of his generals either success or victory and accepts the sacrifice of our brave young men and women in uniform while asking nothing of our people or the nation at a time of war.Sadly, this president has diminished a great nation and may diminish it further.President Bush has pressed hard for the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the first step toward a North American Union that will threaten our sovereignty.
This administration has permitted American businesses to hire illegal aliens, encouraged the invasion of 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and has given Mexico and corporate America dominion over our borders and our immigration policy.Were it not for an outraged public, the Bush administration would have been happy to cede control of our ports to a Dubai government-owned company.
The assault on our national sovereignty continues: At a time when public approval of the White House and Congress is near historic lows, the president is urging the Senate to act favorably on our accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. One hundred fifty-five nations have ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty, which essentially codifies into law detailed rules about freedom of the seas and the extent of territorial waters. The treaty also establishes an international bureaucracy to regulate deep-sea mining.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently heard arguments on the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, which President Ronald Reagan rejected but President Bill Clinton submitted to the Senate in 1994. A vote is likely in the weeks ahead, and this Democratic-controlled Senate is the same institution whose leadership sought passage of the disastrous comprehensive immigration overhaul legislation.And just as this administration trotted out an Army general to support the Dubai Ports World fiasco and a Marine Corps general to support the administration's immigration proposal, it's now pressured the U.S. Navy to support this treaty.
Bush says the treaty "will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain." The president could not be more wrong. This treaty will submit the United States to international tribunals largely adverse to our interests, and the dispute resolution mechanisms are stacked against the United States. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, astutely argues that nearly all the signatories "have voted against the United States over half the time [at the United Nations].
"This administration can do nothing straightforwardly and perverts language at every turn. Take, for example, the words of Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arguing in support of the treaty. "As a non-party," he argues, "We are not currently in a position to maximize U.S. sovereign rights over the shelf in the Arctic or elsewhere."
Negroponte's tortured reasoning is entirely consistent with this administration's intellectual performance over almost two terms in office, but it serves neither the truth nor the national interest.
The Law of the Sea Treaty would undermine our national sovereignty and act as a back door for global environmental activists to direct U.S. policy. It would hold the United States to yet another unaccountable international bureaucracy and constrain our national prerogatives. Aside from that, the treaty is wholly unnecessary. The U.S. Navy already enjoys international navigation rights by customary practice.
Our elected officials in both political parties and the national media should worry less about the legacy of this lame-duck president and far more about the future of a great nation and people debilitated by his ruinous leadership.
U.S. LOST at sea?
By James Lyons
Washington Times
October 5, 2007
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071005/COMMENTARY/110050029
From the days of our Founding Fathers, history has shown no president wants to leave a legacy of surrendering U.S. national sovereignty to a supranational organization. But this will become the case if the Senate — spurred by Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden — ratifies the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) now before it without proper debate by the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
Sen. Biden wants to cut off debate and fast-track LOST. He is misguided. It is inconceivable to this naval officer why the Senate would willingly want to forfeit its responsibility for America"s freedom of the seas to the unelected and unaccountable international agency that would be created by ratification of LOST.
The power of the U.S. Navy, not some anonymous bureaucracy, has been this nation's guarantee of our access to and freedom of the seas. I can site many maritime operations — from our blockade of Cuba in 1962, to the reflagging of ships in the Persian Gulf, to our submarine intelligence-gathering programs — that have been critical to maintaining our freedom of the seas and protecting our waters from encroachment. All those examples would likely have to be submitted to an international tribunal for approval if we become a signatory to this treaty.
In a word, this is incomprehensible. Given the current war on terror, we cannot deny our Navy the ability to carry out legitimate naval intercept operations against vessels carrying possible nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. But such actions would be subject to LOST's arbitration deliberations — a process that in most cases would be decided unfavorably against the United States.
Regardless of what is promised by LOST's proponents, the Clinton administration did not fix the treaty's objectionable clauses. For example, ratification of LOST would subsequently require the United States to submit to mandatory dispute resolution with respect to the ability of the U.S. Navy to conduct its customary maritime operations unfettered.
Further, although LOST allows a party to exempt itself from disputes concerning "military activities," the Treaty does not define such activities, and it is therefore far from certain any U.S. decision to exempt itself from such dispute resolution will be honored by the other parties or dispute resolution bodies — particularly in light of the fact any supposedly exempt "military activity" can be framed as an "environmental activity" by those hostile to the United States.
The military's supply chain is also vulnerable to compulsory dispute resolution in this regard.
The military can also be adversely affected by the LOST requirement that all state parties take all measures necessary to "prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from any source" (Article 194). This requirement could also adversely affect the military's civilian supply chain and the industrial processes involved with supplying the military.
Signers must refrain from even the threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Both Iran and North Korea would fall under this requirement. LOST requires submarines to travel on the surface and show their flag in territorial waters. This constraint would damage the Navy's ability to conduct many of its vital intelligence-gathering operations.
Provisions of LOST will regulate how U.S. businesses can mine the seabed. More important, the treaty requires U.S. companies to transfer strategic technologies to Third World countries, some of them declared or potential enemies of the U.S.
The Treaty will impose a "globe-tax" to finance a pseudo "second United Nations," complete with its own committees and councils. LOST creates a bureaucracy that enforces a mandatory arbitration process that will by its nature be adverse to U.S. corporations and infringe on private property rights.
LOST provides a forum for China and Russia to pursue threatening territorial claims. China has already manipulated LOST to claim sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, while Russia is pursuing its claim to the North Pole seabed by presenting its data to the LOST Continental Shelf Commission — a claim entertained by the commission though LOST clearly indicates that claims like Russia's are groundless.
If the United States joins a treaty that allows for this sort of manipulation, we will still be subject to the Treaty's requirements, and will not necessarily be able to influence decisions concerning China and Russia.
Mr. President, the United States will have only have one vote in all the various LOST committees. We will have no veto power, as we do at the U.N. Security Council. You've accomplished many positives for America, Mr. President. Don't add a huge negative. Reject the Law of the Sea Treaty in its present form. You will be hailed by future generations as a hero for rejecting this faulty, dangerous, anti-U.S. document.
James Lyons, U.S. Navy retired admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations, and deputy chief of naval operations, where he was principal adviser on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters.
Washington Times
October 5, 2007
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071005/COMMENTARY/110050029
From the days of our Founding Fathers, history has shown no president wants to leave a legacy of surrendering U.S. national sovereignty to a supranational organization. But this will become the case if the Senate — spurred by Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden — ratifies the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) now before it without proper debate by the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
Sen. Biden wants to cut off debate and fast-track LOST. He is misguided. It is inconceivable to this naval officer why the Senate would willingly want to forfeit its responsibility for America"s freedom of the seas to the unelected and unaccountable international agency that would be created by ratification of LOST.
The power of the U.S. Navy, not some anonymous bureaucracy, has been this nation's guarantee of our access to and freedom of the seas. I can site many maritime operations — from our blockade of Cuba in 1962, to the reflagging of ships in the Persian Gulf, to our submarine intelligence-gathering programs — that have been critical to maintaining our freedom of the seas and protecting our waters from encroachment. All those examples would likely have to be submitted to an international tribunal for approval if we become a signatory to this treaty.
In a word, this is incomprehensible. Given the current war on terror, we cannot deny our Navy the ability to carry out legitimate naval intercept operations against vessels carrying possible nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. But such actions would be subject to LOST's arbitration deliberations — a process that in most cases would be decided unfavorably against the United States.
Regardless of what is promised by LOST's proponents, the Clinton administration did not fix the treaty's objectionable clauses. For example, ratification of LOST would subsequently require the United States to submit to mandatory dispute resolution with respect to the ability of the U.S. Navy to conduct its customary maritime operations unfettered.
Further, although LOST allows a party to exempt itself from disputes concerning "military activities," the Treaty does not define such activities, and it is therefore far from certain any U.S. decision to exempt itself from such dispute resolution will be honored by the other parties or dispute resolution bodies — particularly in light of the fact any supposedly exempt "military activity" can be framed as an "environmental activity" by those hostile to the United States.
The military's supply chain is also vulnerable to compulsory dispute resolution in this regard.
The military can also be adversely affected by the LOST requirement that all state parties take all measures necessary to "prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from any source" (Article 194). This requirement could also adversely affect the military's civilian supply chain and the industrial processes involved with supplying the military.
Signers must refrain from even the threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Both Iran and North Korea would fall under this requirement. LOST requires submarines to travel on the surface and show their flag in territorial waters. This constraint would damage the Navy's ability to conduct many of its vital intelligence-gathering operations.
Provisions of LOST will regulate how U.S. businesses can mine the seabed. More important, the treaty requires U.S. companies to transfer strategic technologies to Third World countries, some of them declared or potential enemies of the U.S.
The Treaty will impose a "globe-tax" to finance a pseudo "second United Nations," complete with its own committees and councils. LOST creates a bureaucracy that enforces a mandatory arbitration process that will by its nature be adverse to U.S. corporations and infringe on private property rights.
LOST provides a forum for China and Russia to pursue threatening territorial claims. China has already manipulated LOST to claim sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, while Russia is pursuing its claim to the North Pole seabed by presenting its data to the LOST Continental Shelf Commission — a claim entertained by the commission though LOST clearly indicates that claims like Russia's are groundless.
If the United States joins a treaty that allows for this sort of manipulation, we will still be subject to the Treaty's requirements, and will not necessarily be able to influence decisions concerning China and Russia.
Mr. President, the United States will have only have one vote in all the various LOST committees. We will have no veto power, as we do at the U.N. Security Council. You've accomplished many positives for America, Mr. President. Don't add a huge negative. Reject the Law of the Sea Treaty in its present form. You will be hailed by future generations as a hero for rejecting this faulty, dangerous, anti-U.S. document.
James Lyons, U.S. Navy retired admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations, and deputy chief of naval operations, where he was principal adviser on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
