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Like a monster in a horror flick franchise, the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), an omnibus treaty originally blocked by President Ronald Reagan, is back! And despite what the doomsday document's delirious spokesmen say, it's about as scary as ever. The convention is being pushed by a mix of activists, who support international law -- any international law -- and businesses, such as the International Association of Drilling Contractors, that see visions of profits dancing in their boardrooms. Treaty critics are being dismissed as ignorant fools or cynical liars.

WASHINGTON, DC, September 22, 2004 (ENS) - The Bush administration and the U.S. Congress must work together to forge the political will to reshape the nation's ocean policy, the chair of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy told the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Retired Admiral James Watkins said the work of the commission "pales in comparison with what is needed now" and warned that time is already running out. The 610 page final report by the commission, released Monday, presents a troubling view of the nation's oceans and coastal areas, which are plagued by pollution, nutrient runoff, erosion, overfishing...

A new international treaty among the world's countries that would give control of OUR country and OUR territory to bureaucrats from other countries has been put on the table for discussion this month. Is that good for us as Americans? You decide. Then, you must call your Senator & Congressman & complain. ---------------------------------- Subject: Sea Treaty threatens national sovereignty Grassfire.org + + "I am absolutely convinced it undermines U.S. sovereignty." - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) 11/12/2007 Grassfire has just learned that the "Law of the Sea Treaty" being pushed for by the White House, and bolstered by a 17-4 vote...

One of our favorite Reagan anecdotes is told by Kenneth Adelman about what happened when Secretary of State Haig tried to get President Reagan to agree to the Law of the Sea Treaty. This happened at one of the first meetings of Reagan's National Security Council, when the hapless Mr. Haig suggested the treaty was, as Mr. Adelman has written, "something we didn't like but had to accept, since it had emerged over the previous decade through a 150-nation negotiation." Mr. Haig then lunged into details about the options and sub-options for revising the document.The president looked puzzled, then...

The former editor of the New York Times editorial page says it is "crazy" to be opposed to the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty and she can't understand why it has become a hot-button issue in the Republican presidential race. Gail Collins declared in a November 3 column in the Times that the measure simply clarifies "rules for navigation and mining in international waters" and sets up "a system for settling disputes." Those opposed to it, she says, are spinning "conspiracy theories." But Collins is doing the spinning. What if there were evidence that the treaty was the...

Once Britain ruled the waves, then the U.S. Navy. Now will it be judges from landlocked states such as Chad and Bolivia? It will be, if LOST, as it is commonly known, receives a two-thirds majority required for ratification of a treaty on the Senate floor. The administration supports the treaty that Ronald Reagan vetoed in 1982, arguing that it is not the same accord, but rather a version said to address Reagan's objections submitted by Bill Clinton in 1994.We find that hardly an endorsement of a treaty also endorsed by the National Resources Defense Council, largely because of the...

NOVEMBER 02, 2007 GLENN BECK PROGRAM BEGIN TRANSCRIPT GLENN: First we wanted to spend a couple of minutes with Duncan Hunter, presidential candidate for the Republican party. Hello, Duncan. HUNTER: Hey, Glenn Beck, how are you doing? GLENN: Very good, sir. I got the lecture of my life from a friend of mine this weekend. HUNTER: Why is that? GLENN: He said to me, why are you not screaming Duncan Hunter’s name from the highest mountaintop every place you go? HUNTER: Now we’re talking, Glenn GLENN: I know. And he said, I am the biggest fan of Duncan Hunter; he...

As predicted, the big guns of the liberal media are unloading on critics of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty. After ignoring the story of growing opposition to the pact from the American people, the New York Times and the Washington Post both have editorials in their Wednesday papers urging ratification. Since their arguments are full of holes, both papers resort to name-calling, with the Times editorial labeling the critics as “cranky right-wingers” and the Post declaring that opponents of the accord have “irrational fears about one-worldism.” The liberal media establishment has spoken. Will the Senate listen to...

At first blush, the treaty seems too good to be true, but there is a catch: the United Nations. The world body, under the treaty, has expansive powers to regulate international waters.The United Nations has more than a dozen alphabet soup-designated agencies. Some do good deeds; others do not. A great many have served little more purpose than a soapbox for anti-American speeches. LOST already empowers yet another one of these U.N. agencies, this one called the International Seabed Authority, based in Kingston, Jamaica. If the Senate ratifies the treaty, the ISA could become one of the most potent organizations...

A case now before the U.S. Supreme Court proves why the Senate must defeat the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty. The oral arguments heard this month by the justices didn't mention the treaty, but the parallels are powerful. The case concerns Jose Medellin, a Mexican national on death row in Texas. Medellin was convicted and sentenced to death after he confessed in 1993 to the rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston. Long after Medellin had received full due process of the U.S. legal system, in 2003 the Mexican government sued the United States in...

The More People Know About Sea Treaty, The Less They Support ItSenate 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 send the treaty to the full Senate for consideration, there was a marked increase in opposition...

Amid debate on the decades-old Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) in the Senate, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) urged his colleagues to follow the lead set by President Reagan by defeating the treaty. Explaining the dangers of the treaty, Hunter detailed, "It is imperative that our nation does not surrender decision making power for military navigation or resource extraction, especially in this age of terrorism with technology and weapons proliferation. And adding a new set of UN bureaucrats with license to tax and adjudicate disputes is the last thing this country needs." Hunter continued, "Rest assured no...

Can the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty not only be delayed but defeated outright in the Senate? That's the question that conservatives are delightfully pondering as a remarkable series of events has put the pact, supported by the Bush Administration and the liberal leadership in the Senate, in serious jeopardy. Perhaps the most significant development is the announcement by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell that he will oppose the White House and vote against the treaty. As opponents of the treaty make their case in advertisements and on cable TV and talk radio, Republican senators are increasingly hearing from...

Fred Thompson will be issuing the following statement in about the next half hour: "I oppose the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty at this time. The Treaty threatens U.S. sovereignty and gives a U.N.-affiliated organization far too much authority over U.S. interests in international waters. The American people also deserve ironclad assurances that the problems with the treaty highlighted by President Reagan more than two decades ago have been fixed. At a time when customary international law in this area has proven sufficient, I believe the efforts of treaty proponents would be better spent reforming an ineffective,...

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...

Tell Your Senator to vote NO on the Law of the Sea Treaty!! Just this week, the United States Supreme Court gave us an important look into what kind of global power grabs we face if the Senate ratifies the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). On October 10, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Jose Medellin, an illegal alien rapist-murderer now on death row in Texas. Medellin, a citizen of Mexico who lived illegally in the United States, was convicted and sentenced to death after he confessed in 1993 to the brutal rape and murder of...

This Convention on the Law of the Sea has been kicking around since Ronald Reagan kicked it out of his administration. ....Clinton had the treaty reworked, and asked the Senate to ratify it. The Republican Senate refused. George Bush asked the Senate to ratify it during his first term; the Senate refused. Now, the administration is again pushing for ratification.... .....requires that the U.S. subject its sovereignty over its territorial seas to the treaty. Article 2(3) says: "... sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to this Convention and to other rules of international law." .... "dispute resolution" panels...

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea already has created a Byzantine array of international organizations to administer the provisions of LOST. Everything from compliance with global environmental agreements, to the collection of "user fees" from private companies, to disputes about military operations above, on or under international waters are subject to mandatory dispute resolution by one or more of these international bodies.

The Old Man and the Law of the Sea Treaty by: Malcolm A. Kline, October 12, 2007 It’s always fascinating to watch tenured faculty members leaving their ivory cocoons where they lecture to impressionable teenagers and 20-somethings to come face-to-face with skeptical middle-aged men. Such an encounter occurred last week in one of the few hearings the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee deigned to hold on the Law of the Sea Treaty, the U.N.-generated pact that many fear would cede control of the oceans to that international body. “You’ve been assured by some venerable scholars who’ve sought for decades...

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 media have been pummeling conservative Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana for apologizing for sexual indiscretions. But America should be grateful he stayed in the Senate and did not resign in the wake of the media assault. The senator demonstrated on Thursday, during a hearing into the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty, that he is going to continue to do the job he was elected to do. Vitter’s performance was so effective that he left State and Defense Department officials either speechless or caught up in embarrassing contradictions about the impact of this international agreement on America’s security...

THE UNITED NATIONS ... HARD AT WORK Venezuela's Hugo Chavez decided not to show at the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly ... he's probably too busy trying to turn back the clocks one half hour, to ensure that he is not on the same time as the "imperial United States." In the meantime, anti-Bush protestors were arrested on the streets of New York outside of the U.N. building. Business as usual. While the arrests were underway Bush was busy yanking the chains of Cuban delegates to the point where they up and left during his speech. Bush said...

A move by the Bush administration in May of this year which fell under the radar is soon to come to the Senate. On September 27th the Senate will debate and vote on the full ratification of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Seas or in short The Law of the Seas Treaty. The treaty in essence gives the United Nation legal jurisdiction over the planets ocean and sets up a tribunal to govern all legal claims to territorial waters, mineral rights and mining and other uses of the worlds oceans, including navigation. The treaty which has...

URGENT: Senate Liberals Urged to Act on International Criminal Court After Passing Law of the Sea Treaty; Americans At Risk. Will Senator Biden Railroad Treaty Through Senate? Senator Joseph Biden, Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not only has a history of unethical behavior, having been exposed as a notorious serial plagiarist, but is committed to putting the interests of other nations above those of the United States. The next few weeks could feature another one of his bizarre performances. Biden's committee is reported to be holding a hearing on the United Nations Convention on the Law of...

Unfortunately, the Law of the Sea Treaty is no laughing matter.On October 1962, President Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to prevent foreign ships from reaching Cuba unless they submitted to U.S. inspections on the high seas to verify that they were not transporting missiles or other offensive weapons to the island. Similar measures had been adopted in wartime blockades, but the Kennedy administration, not wanting to acknowledge a state of war with Cuba, termed this intervention a "quarantine." It was a soothing term in the midst of a confrontation which threatened to trigger a catastrophic nuclear exchange. So the Kennedy...

The sensational headlines say, “Russian Arctic Team Reaches North Pole.” But the U.S. was there first―back in the early 1900s. America, not Russia, has a valid claim to the North Pole. ... Yet, the U.S. State Department wants to turn the whole matter over to the United Nations. State Department officials, led by Condoleezza Rice’s top lawyer, John B. Bellinger III, are telling the press that the U.S. should immediately ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in order to contest Russia’s claim to the seabed under the North Pole. They seem to have forgotten that...

President Bush urged the Senate Tuesday to act on the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention during this session of Congress and won swift backing from two influential Republican senators. Republican Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Ted Stevens of Alaska echoed Bush’s call for ratification of the accord (Treaty Doc 103-39), which the Foreign Relations Committee approved unanimously in February 2004, under Lugar’s chairmanship. The Bush administration supported the treaty, but the accord never reached the Senate floor due to opposition from conservatives concerned it would surrender U.S. sovereignty. Current Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph R. Biden...

The U.S. Senate will soon exercise one of the fundamental responsibilities granted to it by the U.S. Constitution and vote whether to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Bush administration supports ratification and is joined in that position by a leading member of the U.S. Senate. The Foreign Relations Committee, which I chair, voted 19-0 to recommend to the Senate that the United States join 145 other parties to enter the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). That Senate decision is pending as this publication goes to press. The Senate Foreign Relations...

The very controversial Law of the Sea Treaty, LOST, which is still in committee, is a done deal, according to a senior White House official. Of the 145 countries that have ratified this United Nations treaty, the U.S. is the only major power not to have ratified it. Various groups of countries that have signed it include all of the G8 countries with the exception of the U.S., almost two-thirds of the countries in our hemisphere that are members of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas, as well as both NAFTA partners. The Law of the Sea was placed...

 # 542   August 2006 Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty: A Not-So-Innocent Passage by David A. Ridenour  The "right of innocent passage" is the right of any nation's ships to traverse continuously and expeditiously through the territorial waters of a coastal nation, subject to certain conditions.1  Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, such passage is conditioned on passing in a manner that isn't threatening to "sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence" or the "good order and security" of that nation.By this definition, if the Law of the Sea Treaty was a ship, it would fail...

We're beating the United Nations - PLEASE HELP Your efforts are beginning to work! Our members have sent over SIXTY THOUSAND faxes to ALL 55 Republican Senators, demanding that they REJECT passage of the United Nations "Law of the Sea Treaty" (LOST) -- the OUTRAGEOUS treaty that would impose UN taxes on the American people, and would entail history's biggest and most unwarranted voluntary transfer of wealth AND surrender of sovereignty. This ridiculous treaty is the SAME treaty that Ronald Reagan REFUSED to sign, but Bill Clinton wanted passed -- and now some Senators are trying to push it through...

Anti-piracy advocate calls for changes to UN Convention (SINGAPORE) International shipping is paying the price for the 'obsessive' emphasis on sovereignty in the Straits of Malacca, said anti-piracy advocate Alan Chan who is urging changes to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). The 22-year-old Unclos needs to be updated to extend its emphasis on safety to include security, said the anti-piracy advocate and chairman of tanker firm Petroships. 'Unclos is very much concerned with safety,' Mr Chan told delegates at the recent International Maritime & Port Security Conference. 'In those days the issue of security...

In the wake of international terrorism's most-successful strategic attack since September 11, 2001, the differences between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush about how the war on terror should be waged have become as clear as, well, the differences between the outgoing Spanish premier and his successor. To be sure, even before last Thursday's murderous explosions in Madrid, Senator Kerry and his surrogates were denouncing the war in Iraq on the grounds that President Bush failed to get the U.N.'s permission for it — and then was unable to turn the governance of the country post-Saddam over to the so-called...

Sometimes words can mislead by lulling us to sleep when we should be awake. Utter the words, "Law of the Sea Treaty" (LOST), and watch people's eyes glaze over. When it comes to this treaty, the road warriors of the Left hope yours do, too. Don't let them. Keep reading. LOST, if ratified, would represent the single greatest loss of sovereignty in the history of America. It must be stopped. For our purposes, the LOST story begins in 1980, when Republicans condemned this Carter-era treaty in their national platform. It continues in 1981, when the treaty was sprung on President...