Free Republic

With an impending Obama presidency, what's gonna happen with the law of the sea treaty? If any president signs any international treaty, doesn't that become a part of the constitution? How can that be fixed by a future president/congress? I've never read anything that deals with this kind of precedent, if it even exists.

As Planet Gore readers likely know, Congress currently prohibits the federal government to sell leases for energy production along the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). As the Congressional Research Service Office has put it, “OCS moratoria, which prohibit leasing on most federal offshore lands, have been an important issue in the debate over energy security and the potential availability of additional domestic oil and gas resources. Congress has enacted the moratoria for each of fiscal years 1982-2006 [NB: now 2008] in the annual Interior Appropriations bill.” This prohibition expires at the end of this (and every other) fiscal year. It...

Michael Byers, professor of global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, said Ottawa should pay closer attention to co-operation with its Arctic neighbours and not engage in "conflict and heated rhetoric." Byers said Canada cannot back up strong words with the hardware needed to assert sovereignty in the North. Byers and other critics say Canada's surveillance and control of the North falls short, even with Ottawa's recent plans for a bigger military presence. Norway, the United States, Denmark and Russia also have claims in the vast region. Denmark is gathering scientific evidence to show that the...

The State, the most prominent paper in South Carolina, has endorsed Sen. John McCain for president, saying he understands the issues and has integrity and independence. But on one of the big issues – the role of the United Nations in world affairs – this so-called “Straight Talker” has been guilty of double talk. McCain has taken contradictory positions on Senate ratification of the UN’s Law of the Sea Treaty. The measure, which creates an independent source of revenue for the United Nations, is now pending in the Senate, of which McCain is a member. This is not an obscure...

For Release: October 31, 2007 Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org The More People Know About Sea Treaty, The Less They Support It Senate Committee Approves Treaty, But With Sharp Increase in Opposition Statement of David A. Ridenour, Vice President, The National Center for Public Policy Research on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on the Law of the Sea Treaty this morning: The more people learn about the Law of the Sea Treaty, the less they like it. That's the message from this morning's vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although the Committee voted to...

The Law of the Sea Treaty (“LOST” to opponents, “UNCLOS” to supporters) is up for a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this Thursday, November 1. The State Department pushed this treaty in 1981 when Ronald Reagan was President. He rejected it, primarily because of Part XI of the Treaty, which regulates minerals on the seabed outside any sovereign state's territorial waters. It establishes an International Seabed Authority (ISA) to authorize seabed exploration and mining and collect and distribute the seabed mining royalty. President Reagan strongly objected to the provisions of Part XI, saying that they were unfavorable to...

In a press release, the Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty acknowledges the growing field of G.O.P. Presidential candidates who publicly have expressed opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST. Former NYC mayor and GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani is notably missing from the field. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, through a statement by his spokesperson published October 26, has become the latest Presidential candidate to oppose LOST, notes the group: "Governor Romney has concerns with the Law of the Sea Treaty. He believes giving unaccountable international institutions more power is a serious problem." Other Presidential candidates who have...

In his 2004 State of the Union Address, President Bush said, “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.” Members of both parties and Houses of Congress applauded. But if the U.S. Senate votes to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea — known as the Law of the Sea Treaty, or its appropriate acronym, LOST — he and his successors are going to need lots of permission slips. In 1982, Ronald Reagan, concerned about the treaty’s implications for our sovereignty and national security, formally rejected LOST because it did “not...

Have you heard anything about the Law of the Sea Treaty? If not, you should take the time to educate yourself. Here are a few news stories and videos about the U.N. move to dominate 70% of the Earth’s surface.

It is an impressive testament to the abiding affection and political influence of former President Ronald Reagan that the fate of a controversial treaty now before the U.S. Senate may ultimately turn on a single question: What would Reagan do? As we had the privilege of working closely with President Reagan in connection with the foreign policy, national security and domestic implications of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST), there is no question about how our 40th president felt about this accord. He so strongly...

Liberal Senate Democrats and the U.S. State Department are desperate to get the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty ratified. But Senator David Vitter, a conservative Republican, keeps getting in the way. Through skillful questioning during Thursday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the Louisiana Republican got a leading treaty supporter to acknowledge that America's enemies can manipulate the process of mandatory dispute settlement under the treaty so that the United Nations Secretary-General plays the key role in the outcome. Vitter called this a "recipe for disaster" for America and urged more hearings into the treaty's flaws.

How well I recall the Panama Canal Treaty fight of thirty years ago. The political establishment was adamantly in favor of the Treaty. The people were against it. There were two political consequences of the ratification of the Treaty. Many Democratic Senators insisted they knew better than the people. The first of these was Senator Thomas J. McIntyre (D-NH). “I was elected by the people. I know more than they do. Of course, I am in favor of the Treaty.” Well, no. The people knew better than he did. He made that statement in 1977. The following year a co-pilot...

The United States has always been defined by the oceans. For centuries they’ve separated our nation from potential invaders. They also have served as a lifeline, providing abundant food in colonial times and vital trade today. About 20 percent of the world’s oceanbourne trade passes through American ports. So it makes sense that the Bush administration would want to protect America’s freedom of access to the oceans. Unfortunately, it’s trying to take a big step in the wrong direction. For the second time in three years, President Bush has asked the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on the...

An international treaty under consideration by the Senate would seriously undermine the economic clout the U.S. currently wields at the United Nations. Approval of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a 25-year-old international treaty regulating use of the world’s oceans, is steaming ahead in the Senate, where committee hearings have been scheduled to begin on Sept. 27. Among other provisions, UNCLOS would levy a tax on members’ undersea operations, requiring nations to pay up to 7 percent of their sea-mining revenues. There are some 400 million barrels of oil and large untapped reserves of natural gas...

Rubber Stamp?By Frank J. Gaffney Jr. FrontPageMagazine.com | 9/25/2007 Come Thursday, the future of the United States Senate will begin to take shape. On that day, the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee will begin the first of two days of hearings on the ratification of one of the most momentous international agreements in memory: the United Nation’s Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). If all goes according to the proponents’ plan, few Senators will have any idea what LOST entails before they are asked to vote for it. The working assumption is that many legislators will be inclined to do...

Angering conservatives on the critical issue of national sovereignty, the Bush Administration is supporting a plan by Senator Joseph Biden, D-De., to stage a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on September 27 in order to usher the controversial U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty to the Senate floor for a quick vote. Biden, chairman of the committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, was a leader of the effort to defeat Bush’s pick of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Conservatives are hoping the facts about President Reagan’s rejection of the measure, mainly on the grounds that it was a...

Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic Congressman from Indiana, reports in an August 27 column in the Indianapolis Star that the Senate will vote in September whether to join the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The treaty, the most comprehensive and potentially dangerous ever devised, would dramatically affect the ability of the U.S. to compete for oil and gas and precious minerals in the oceans of the world. The New York Times is the latest liberal paper to endorse the treaty, arguing in an August 25 editorial that "unless the United States joins up, it could very...

With $20 billion per annum in public funding the modern earth cult can easily spend some nickels to attract cult members. I can well imagine that soon, on prime time TV, [or a gay sitcom], will be the tax-payer funded eco-cult recruitment, 'You must join us' advert. It will show a wide expanse of meadow populated by masses of automatons with arms outstretched resembling a fuehrer cult rally. Their laconic voices will repeat the intonation, 'save the earth goddess...save the earth goddess...' The camera will sweep in and out showing mindless, fixated faces with dilated pupils staring upwards, saliva seeping...

FEDERAL Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has defended Labor's plan to intercept Japanese whaling vessels after the Government said the idea was doomed to fail. Under Labor's plan, unveiled yesterday, Australian navy ships would be sent to intercept and board whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean. Labor would also make formal representations to Japan about its whaling program and take the country to international courts such as the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull today called the plan dangerous, reckless, counterproductive and "clearly not thought through". He said it...

International Law: Why does an administration that says we don't need a "permission slip" to defend ourselves seem determined to sign away our freedom of the seas to the United Nations? The question is as valid today as it was when we asked it two years ago. We were grateful then that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had successfully defeated an attempt by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to revive the flawed treaty vetoed by President Ronald Reagan more than two decades earlier. During her confirmation hearings for secretary of state in January 2005, Condoleezza Rice was asked by Foreign...