President Bush tells base to "get LOST"

Center for Security Policy ^ | May 10, 2007 | CSP Decision Brief

[upchuck]

The Law of the Sea Treaty will impede the U.S.'s ability to defend its interests in time of war.

President Bush is expected shortly to announce his determination to secure the early ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).  This treaty, which was rejected by President Ronald Reagan and bottled up by the Republican Senate in the last Congress, promises further to weaken the President's already plummeting support among his political base, on and off of Capitol Hill.

LOST has long been the crown-jewel of a community known as the transnational progressives ("transies") found in various quarters of this and foreign governments, international bureaucrats and non-governmental organizations.   The transies seek to have supranational institutions govern world affairs, circumscribing the freedom of action and undermining the sovereignty of the American people and those of other freedom-loving nations.  

The Bush Administration's strong enthusiasm for subjecting this country to such an accord compounds concerns about its penchant for other Transie initiatives, including the North American Union/Security and Prosperity Partnership (NAU/SPP) now being stealthily negotiated between U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials and interest groups.

A Bill of Particulars

Among the problems inherent with the Law of the Sea Treaty are the following:

• U.S. ratification of LOST would give real substance to the supranational organization it established, the International Seabed Authority, an entity charged with governing activity on 2/3 of the earth's surface. The Authority (as it is ominously known) has powers unprecedented in the history of multilateral institutions – for example, the power to levy what amount to international taxes, with the intention of transferring wealth from developed nations, like the United States, to the developing ones.
  
  
• LOST has its own court – called the Law of the Sea Tribunal – that will be able to dictate to this country on a host of matters bearing on our security, our sovereignty and our economic well-being.  The United States may not even be represented on this politicized, multinational court, let alone be able to prevent its adverse rulings.   For similar reasons, the Bush Administration has wisely worked to keep its interests and officials out of the clutches of another such panel, the International Criminal Court.
  
  
• The Law of the Sea Tribunal determines its own jurisdiction.  It is reasonable to expect that it will feel free to assert authority over U.S. naval activities that: allegedly affect whales; involve intelligence and submerged operations in territorial waters; and attempt to prevent terrorist attacks and proliferation by stopping and searching ships on the high seas.  The Tribunal has already claimed jurisdiction over a nuclear power plant ashore in Great Britain!
  
  
• LOST would oblige the United States to transfer possibly militarily significant technology and information to the UN's International Seabed Authority and its member states, including possibly America's adversaries.   This could result in the compromise of technologies that could be used, for example, in anti-submarine warfare and will afford them data (detailed imagery of underwater access routes, off-shore hiding places, etc.) that could be used to facilitate attacks on this country.  It is not consistent with either American principles or interests to provide enemies with tools to use against us.
  
  

• LOST is emboldening Communist China to become ever more aggressive , threatening regional and global security and economic interests.  China has used its own interpretation of LOST to assert control over much of the South China Sea in its quest for access to vast quantities of natural resources, potentially sparking conflict with its neighbors.  In addition, China has expressed its willingness to use LOST as a legal mechanism to prohibit other countries from coming to Taiwan's defense in the event that the mainland decides to attack the island.
  
  
• LOST sets a dangerous precedent that could be used to deny the U.S. "freedom of space."  Just as American naval power has assured and safeguarded "freedom of the seas" for many decades, this country's ability to have assured access to and use of space is vital for both our own national security and commercial interests and those of the Free World.  Adversaries recognize this reality, and as with the Law of the Sea Treaty and our planet's oceans, they are attempting to inhibit our dominant position in and control of space through the imposition of international laws and regulations.   LOST will be a model for a new multilateral regime to govern the last so-called "global commons": outer space.

The Bottom Line

One would think that the last thing President Bush needs at the moment is to alienate those who have stood beside him – through thick and thin – as he has striven to do the hard things needed to protect the security and (to a lesser extent) the sovereignty of the United States.  He is unlikely to get much credit from the transnational progressives, who detest him, for this concession to their agenda.  His embrace of that agenda, however, puts at grave risk the support the Administration could otherwise expect, and will certainly need, from those who have admired him and oppose what the transies have in mind for America.

[upchuck]

Another post on this topic.

Between this latest national sovereignty killer and his do nothing approach to illegal aliens over running our country, I'm about ready to give up on W.

(I really, really hated writing that last paragraph.)

[oblomov]

These are dark times indeed.

[SShultz460]

Long term Sea security is in the interest of the entire free world.

I don’t want it to be our Coast Guard that enforces that, do you?

[Eagles6]

save

[basil]

It does seem that this president is staying up nights trying to figure out more ways to dissolve our national sovereignty. I hate to say that, too—but what else can we think after watching him for 7 years?

[Roccus]

The ruling class in this country, with the assistance both political parties, is bound and determined to steer us to a one world government. The only differences are the ‘how’ and the ‘when’.

[EternalVigilance]

I find it interesting that those in the Bush Administration who are pushing this abomination buried this for the last couple years, after most leaders in the conservative movement made their opposition known in no uncertain terms, but NOW see fit to go for it. Why is that? My guess? They see that those who are their closest ideological kin are now in power. They’re called Democrats.

[sanjacjake]

One gets what one deserves..the saddest part of this
disappointment is that the one, really, great Bush
guy getting the short end of the stick..is JEB. JK

[Fiddlstix]

Bookmark
Bump

[upchuck]

What is wrong with leaving it the way it is now?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

This so-called treaty is nothing more than another try at a power grab that will favor only the international elites.

[Liberty Valance]

*

[mdefranc]

If JEB is so solid, why doesn’t he speak out for his country?

[EternalVigilance]

Opportunity Knocking: Defeat Law Of The Sea Treaty

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by Phyllis Schlafly, February 9, 2005

---

When Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) asked Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation hearings about the Law of the Sea Treaty, she replied that President Bush “certainly would like to see it passed as soon as possible.” Assuming she was authorized to deliver that shocking news, George W. Bush can no longer claim the mantle of the Ronald Reagan legacy.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was a terrible idea when President Reagan refused to sign it in 1982 and fired the State Department staff who helped to negotiate it. It’s an even worse idea today because of the additional dangers it poses.

The acronym for the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is apt. LOST is the correct word for our sovereignty that would be lost under LOST.

Republicans who oppose this giant giveaway are looking at a stunning historical model. Ronald Reagan became the conservative standard bearer when he led the fight against the Panama Canal Treaty which was supported by incumbent Presidents Ford and then Carter.

We lost the battle to prevent the Panama Canal giveaway by one Senate vote in 1977. But that battle made Reagan the undisputed leader of the conservative movement and multiplied its activists.

Hindsight teaches us that the battle was well worth fighting because it brought about the cataclysmic events of 1980: the election of a real pro-American conservative President plus the defeat of most of the internationalist Senators who voted for the giveaway.

Conservatives are currently searching for a man of pro-American principles whom they can support for President in 2008. The Republican Senator or Governor who steps up to the plate can hit a home run if he leads the battle against LOST’s enormous wealth transfer to the unpopular United Nations.

The LOST is grounded in such un-American and un-Republican concepts as global socialism and world government. There is not much of a constituency today for giving more power and wealth to the United Nations, whose officials just committed the biggest corruption in history (oil-for-food) and continually use the UN as a platform for anti-American diatribes.

The LOST is so bad that it is a puzzlement how anyone who respects American sovereignty could support it with a straight face. LOST would give its own creation, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the power to regulate seven-tenths of the world’s surface area, a territory greater than the Soviet Union ruled at its zenith.

The LOST would give ISA the power to levy international taxes, one of the essential indicia of sovereignty. This ISA power is artfully concealed behind direct U.S. assessments and fees paid by corporations, but the proper word is taxes.

The LOST would give ISA the power to regulate ocean research and exploration. The LOST would give ISA the power to impose production quotas for deep-sea mining and oil production.

The LOST would give ISA the power to create a multinational court system and to enforce its judgments. The ISA courts would have even wider jurisdiction than the International Criminal Court (to which, fortunately, we do not belong) or the World Trade Organization (which has ruled against the United States a dozen times and forced us to change our tax laws and import duties).

There is no guarantee that the United States would even be represented on the ISA tribunals. The whole concept of putting the United States in the noose of another one-nation-one-vote global organization, which reduces America to the same vote as Cuba, is offensive to Americans.

In the post-9/11 world, the idea of signing a treaty that mandates information-sharing with our enemies plus technology transfers is not only dangerous but ridiculous.

Of course, Bill Clinton is for the LOST; he signed it in 1994. The LOST meshes perfectly with his speech to the United Nations in September 1997, in which he boasted of wanting to put America into a “web” of treaties for “the emerging international system.”

Of course, Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar is for LOST. Like Clinton, he is a Rhodes scholar and an internationalist who never saw a United Nations treaty he didn’t like.

Vice President Cheney is an advocate of LOST. He doesn’t have to listen to American voters because he will never again run for office.

Lugar’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about LOST, held without any publicity and with only advocates invited to testify, was an insult to the American people. Majority Leader Bill Frist will forfeit his chance to be in the running for the Republican nomination for President if he schedules a vote before all Senate committees affected by the LOST hold hearings with both sides represented.

The real purpose of LOST is to force the United States to use our wealth and technology to mine the riches of the sea and turn them over to a gang of Third World dictators who are consumed with envy of America. Opportunity is knocking for a Republican Senator or Governor who will lead the charge against the LOST.

http://www.eagleforum.org/cgi_bin/print/MasterPFP.cgi?doc=http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2005/feb05/05-02-09.html&bottom=http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2005/feb05/05-02-09.html

[upchuck]

Thank you.

[jdege]

The worst thing about the LOST is that it grants the International Seabed Authority the power to tax.

Think about it.

A bunch of unelected internationalist progressives, with the authority to impose taxes?

From this follows, as certain as night follows day:

1. They’ll abuse that authority. They’re answerable to no one, why would they not.

2. Other unaccountable transnational authorities will also be given the authority to impose taxes.

3. They, also, will abuse their authority.

4. The process of ending that abuse will be long, expensive, and bloody.

[M203M4]

Didn't you get the memo? None of these concerns about sovereignty matter in a post-9/11 world. The only thing that matters is the WOT - all other concerns are to be indefinitely suspended (especially if a convenient WOT pretext exists). It doesn't take just a regular village anymore - it takes a global village. May our chains rest lightly.

[Alberta's Child]

The notion that any kind of international court or tribunal would have the ability to enforce anything at all against the U.S. is rather silly. The United States is the only country left that has the ability to project military force all over the world, and we have shown through our own violations of trade agreements that we don’t abide by any decision from an international body that we don’t agree with.

[n-tres-ted]

Is this a reliable source of information? I haven’t seen anything else to indicate this intention of the president. There are certainly people in the State Department who would support and leak this. But, the president? We’ll see.

[AuntB]

Don’t forget Al.

UN treaties are effective means for US to help Third World
Gore said that agencies of the United Nations “offer the US an effective means of doing our fair share to alleviate suffering in some of the most miserable corners of the globe.” On treaties not signed by the United States, Mr. Gore gave unequivocal support to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Law of the Sea Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Source: Barbara Crossette, NY Times Aug 20, 2000

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Al_Gore_Foreign_Policy.htm

[EternalVigilance]

The Law of the Sea Treaty
by Carrie E. Donovan
WebMemo #470

The Law of the Sea Treaty (”Treaty”) was conceived in 1982 by the United Nations (U.N.) as a method for governing activities on, over, and beneath the ocean’s surface. It focuses primarily on navigational and transit issues. The Treaty also contains provisions on the regulation of deep-sea mining and the redistribution of wealth to underdeveloped countries—as well as sections regarding marine trade, pollution, research, and dispute resolution. The Bush Administration has expressed interest in joining the International Seabed Authority and has urged the U.S. Senate to ratify the Treaty. However, many of former President Ronald Reagan’s original objections to the Treaty—while modified—still hold true today, and many of the possible national security advantages are already in place.

National Security Issues

Under the Treaty, a 12-mile territorial sea limit and a 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) are established. This sets a definitive limit on the oceanic area over which a country may claim jurisdiction. However, innocent passage—including non-wartime activities of military ships—is protected. Even without the Treaty, these boundaries, and the precedent of safe passage, are protected under multiple independent treaties, as well as traditional international maritime law. Additionally, given the United States’ naval superiority, few countries would attempt to deny safe passage. However, under the Treaty, intelligence and submarine maneuvers in territorial waters would be restricted and regulated.

Environmental and Economic Issues

Former President Reagan refused to sign the Treaty in 1982 due to its innate conflict with basic free-market principles (e.g., private property, free enterprise, and competition). Twelve years later, the Clinton Administration submitted to the U.S. Senate a revised version of the Treaty. This revised version allegedly corrected many of the original objections to the Treaty, but still failed to receive Senate ratification: Therefore, the United States’ provisional participation expired in 1998. The Treaty still requires adherence to policies that regulate deep-sea mining, as well as forcing participants to adopt laws and regulations to control and prevent marine pollution. Additionally, under the Treaty, a corporation cannot bring suit, but must rely upon its country of origin to address the corporation’s concerns before the U.N. agency.

Reagan’s Objections

Former President Reagan’s first objection to the Treaty was the Principle of the “Common Heritage of Mankind,” which dictates that oceanic resources should be shared among all mankind and cannot be claimed by any one nation or people. In order to achieve this goal, the Treaty creates the International Seabed Authority (”Authority”) to regulate and exploit mineral resources. It requires a company to submit an application fee of $500,000 (now $250,000), as well as a bonus site for the Authority to utilize for its own mining efforts. Additionally, the corporation must pay an annual fee of $1 million, as well as a percentage of its profits (increasing annually up to 7%), and must agree to share mining and navigational technology—thereby ensuring that opportunities aren’t restricted to more technologically advanced countries. The decision to grant or to withhold mining permits is decided by the Authority, which consists disproportionately of underdeveloped countries. Technology-sharing is no longer mandatory, however, there are remaining “principles” to guide its use and distribution. Additionally, the Council has been restructured so that the United States has a permanent seat, and developed countries can create a blocking vote.

Secondly, former President Reagan believed that the Treaty would restrict the world’s supply of minerals. The Treaty was originally designed to limit the exploitation of heavy minerals in order to protect the mineral sales of land-locked, developing nations. This is no longer a severe limitation, because production limits to preserve land-based mining have been removed.

The third—and still valid—objection is that mandatory dispute resolution restricts autonomy. Either a U.N. court or tribunal must mandate maritime issues involving fisheries, marine environmental protection, and preservation, research, and navigation. A country may opt out if the dispute involves maritime boundaries, military, or limited law enforcement activities. Submitting to external jurisdiction creates an uncomfortable precedent. Furthermore, it weakens the U.S. argument of autonomy when it refuses to submit to the International Criminal Court. Additionally, a country must petition to be excluded from mandatory jurisdiction requirements.

Carrie E. Donovan is Production and Operations Coordinator in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation.