Free Republic

The United States Senate may vote very soon on one of the most far-reaching and dangerous treaties our government has ever considered for ratification: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (also known as the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST). The treaty, which has simmered on the back burners of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades, would give the United Nations control and jurisdiction over the world's oceans, nearly three-quarters of the surface of our planet. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface and...

<p>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."</p>

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...

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote today on the ratification of the United Nations' Law of the Sea Treaty, a wide-ranging measure critics say will grant the U.N. control of 70 percent of the planet under its oceans. With Democrats in nearly unanimous agreement with the treaty and the Bush administration behind it, it will be up to a handful of determined Republican senators to derail it. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will oppose the plan, and other senators have indicated they have heard from constituents who are afraid of the proposal. "In the same way...

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 over 30 years of working in and watching the ways of Washington, I must say, I have never seen anything quite like it. According to Senator Jon Kyl, the entire Senate Republican leadership is now opposed to a controversial treaty supported by the president and an implausible alliance of special interests – from the U.S. Navy to Greenpeace. At a joint press conference last Wednesday, he was one of several Senators to declare that, as a result, supporters would be unable to muster the necessary 67 votes for ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Yet, it...

When State Department Legal Adviser John B. Bellinger III gave a controversial June 6 speech on the subject of "The United States and International Law," he mentioned that the Bush Administration had "put forward a priority list of over 35 treaty packages that we have urged the Senate to approve soon, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea." The latter is now up for Senate ratification, with a vote scheduled on Wednesday, and one of its many controversial provisions is the regulation of land-based sources of pollution. This treaty covers the water and the land. But now...

His campaign was unable to return calls for my story, but apparently Sen. John McCain has now flipped and will oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty. It's quite a move for a guy who joined with some of the Senate's most liberal senators in 1998 in urging favorable consideration and who was actually scheduled to testify on behalf of the treaty in 2003, as then-Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar says in his opening statement from that hearing.

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...

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...

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...

Is the tide of public opinion running out on the Law of the Sea Treaty? A brief notice appeared in last week's "Washington Wire" column in The Wall Street Journal that proclaimed the conservatives have succeeded -- for now -- in preventing the Bush Administration from promoting ratification of the Treaty. It appears highly unlikely that the Senate will be able to debate and vote on this Treaty this year. But we have not yet sent this Treaty down to a watery grave. There are six other committees that could hold hearings. In the words of a close friend, "The...

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.

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 opposed...

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.

Irony of ironies: The principal champion of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is the United States Navy. Yet predictably few organizations would suffer more than America's naval forces from a supranational government of the oceans empowered by U.S. accession to that treaty. The absurdity of this situation was on display last week as the Navy's former senior officer, retired Chief of Naval Operations Vernon Clark, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Adm. Clark waxed on about LOST as "a Magna Carta for the oceans that guarantees navigation freedoms throughout the world's largest maneuver space." The committee's ranking...

Do you think our "adversary press" is on the lookout for government lies? Consider the false testimony (web site) before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on behalf of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This is a treaty that our media want passed by the Senate. So they are letting his lies go completely unchallenged. One of the most audacious lies was that, despite the fact that the treaty carries the name "United Nations" in its title, it is not a U.N. treaty. Negroponte's testimony included several "myths"...

Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman has a tough re-election fight in 2008 and his Democratic opponent could be obnoxious left-wing comedian Al Franken. But Coleman, who chaired important hearings in 2005 into the United Nations oil-for-food scandal, is starting to make conservatives nervous. He skipped two important hearings on ratification of the controversial United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) but found enough time for a photo-op with rock star Bono. It is a tendency of many Republicans to move left when they are in tough re-election fights. They end up losing, rather than gaining, voters. They...

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.

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...

Once the scourge of goo-goo internationalism, the Bush administration is now desperate to appease the United Nations crowd, Europeans, and "transies," as the transnational progressives, or NGO gaggle, is called. The president's latest concession is pushing the Law of the Sea Treaty, appropriately known as LOST. Needless to say, all of the wrong people are excited at the prospect of American ratification of LOST, after a more than three decade long struggle. Those who oppose the inevitable LOST victory will show themselves to be "part of an extreme out-of-touch minority," said one happy treaty advocate.

The Law of the Sea Treaty, a k a "LOST," the leviathan of all U.N. regulatory and environmental treaties, has again reared its ugly head, despite having been "deep-sixed" years ago by the Reagan administration. A legacy-oriented White House is now shepherding it through a Congress whose majority enthusiastically embraces collectivist European-style environmental activism and multilateral treaty-making — at the expense of constitutionally-protected individualism and property rights. Is the White House merely ill-informed, or has it intentionally chosen to ignore the lessons of history? Does it not recall the past decade of highly contentious trade disputes between the United States...

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...

Dan Rather is making headlines suing his former employer, but Rather’s predecessor, Walter Cronkite, is busy promoting world government. Cronkite has just surfaced as one of the 101 “prominent leaders” signing a letter urging Senate passage of the Law of the Sea Treaty. His CBS affiliation is listed on the letter, making it seem as though the media giant is taking sides in the debate over the pact. This would not be surprising; media coverage has been overwhelmingly pro-treaty. A news conference I participated in on September 26 to oppose the treaty was ignored by most of the media. However,...

WASHINGTON – For the second time in three years, the Bush administration is putting on a major effort for Senate ratification of the United Nations' Law of the Sea Treaty, a wide-ranging measure critics say will grant the U.N. control of 70 percent of the planet under its oceans. With Democrats in nearly unanimous agreement with the treaty and the Bush administration behind it, it will be up to a handful of determined Republican senators to derail it from getting a two-thirds vote in the upper house. The treaty is currently under review by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and...

(CNSNews.com) - An international treaty that President Reagan vetoed in the early 1980s is being re-visited in the Senate this week where State Department and Defense Department officials are expected to push for its ratification..

A national defense analyst says it's absolutely crazy that Pentagon officials will push the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to recommend the quick ratification of the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty. Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival, has already expressed his concerns that the Chinese have been using their huge trade advantage with the U.S. to build up their navy, while the U.S. Navy plans to further reduce the number of ships in its fleet. (See earlier article) But Kincaid says instead of changing course and rebuilding to counter the Chinese threat, top Naval officials, including Chief of Naval Operations...

With all the critical problems facing America today, it's hard to see why President George W. Bush is wasting whatever is left of his political capital to partner with Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., to try to get the Senate to ratify the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty. As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is scheduled to hold a hearing loaded with pro-treaty witnesses and then try to sneak through ratification while the public is focused on other globalism and giveaway mischief. The Law of the Sea Treaty is the globalists' dream bill. It would put...

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...

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.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)is the biggest giveaway of American sovereignty and resources since Jimmy Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty. It creates a global tax on American companies and turns the riches of the oceans, including oil, gas and minerals, over to the United Nations.   Defending America? The U.S. Navy is now committed to a "global maritime network" under "hundreds of flags." The 202-page treaty document was described by the late leftist Senator Alan Cranston as "the most far-reaching and comprehensive system created thus far by the global community." UNCLOS mandates a global tax...

This article states that The United States stands to gain nearly 300,000 square miles of additional ocean holdings, including an estimated 400 billion barrels of untapped undersea oil and gas, experts say. It goes on to say that it could make the 1849 Gold Rush and the Texas oil boom seem trivial by comparison. Not surprisingly, U.S. oil and gas companies support ratification.

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...

The U.S. is poised to turn much of its authority on the high seas over to international arbiters by ratifying a long-controversial United Nations sea treaty. 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 full speed ahead in the Senate, where committee hearings are set to begin Sept. 27. The full Senate is likely to ratify the treaty -- which would link U.S. naval actions to those of 155 other member nations -- by year's end. For decades, critics have derided the 182-page Law...

America celebrates Constitution Day on Monday, September 17, as we find members of the Bush Administration and liberals in the Senate working feverishly to get the U.S. involved in another international treaty, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This pact, which would further erode the sovereignty and independence of our nation, authorizes foreign bodies and judges to decide our fate on the oceans, determining who gets access to vast deposits of oil and gas and precious minerals. A Senate vote on this pact is coming up soon, perhaps by the end of this month.

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...

The Bush Administration has renewed its 2004 request that the Senate ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). While UNCLOS contains provisions that would be marginally beneficial to the U.S. Navy, other provisions of the treaty, such as those regarding the settlement of disputes, royalties on the exploitation of resources on the deep seabed, and the empowering of an additional U.N.-affiliated international bureaucracy, pose far greater risks to U.S. interests. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is likely to have unintended negative consequences for U.S. interests. Nothing has occurred since 2004...

<p>By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.</p> <p>Twenty-two years ago, Ronald Reagan determined that the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was, like so much else about the United Nations, irremediably defective. He refused to sign it, let alone seek Senate approval for its ratification.</p>