LOST Sovereignty is not in Question
By Craig Masters
Next month, the full US Senate will finally have a vote on a treaty that has been “kicked down the road” for more some thirty years. It is considered by all who have read it, including this author, to be the end of United States sovereignty and the beginning of total redistribution of wealth on a global scale. The arguments for and against this fact are based on whether or not one believes that the US and individual freedoms are “fair” or exploit poorer people/nations.
In August of 2006, David A. Ridenour wrote for The National Center for Public Policy Research, “…there are serious flaws in the treaty that – if U.S. ratified the treaty – could place U.S. sovereignty, security and political independence in doubt.”
So why is this treaty, officially named the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, news in May of 2012? Because the United Nations’ attempts to date have been unsuccessful at having it ratified by the senate of the United States. Without the U.S. signing on to this creation of a world judicial body governing the oceans and all that impacts them, there is no money to fund this new and huge world bureaucracy.
The purpose of the Law of the Sea Treaty ( LOST) is to establish a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans. The most recent version is labeled UNCLOS III because versions I and II originally from 1958 and 1960 were considered inadequate by those supporting a new world economic order. Those previous versions, according to the agenda of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, failed to go far enough to establish what were called “fairer” terms of trade and the necessary UN controlled financing for developing nations.
The version of the treaty the United States senate will be considering next month was originally negotiated in the 1970s. It was based on economic principles of the New International Economic Order: the original program for world wealth redistribution. It has been rebuked by every president since, including Bush in 2007 when it passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a 17-4 vote.
But Obama and Secretary Clinton have worked in support of passage of this treaty by the full senate next month. If successful, the control of literally the entire atmosphere of the world will be under the jurisdiction of a world “court” appointed by the United Nations which will have supreme power over all of the world’s environmental issues: no appeals!
To be clear, Colorado citizens could find themselves paying for an expensive legal dispute over water in the Colorado River if Mexico or North Korea decided they were being impacted by our use of the river water on our farms. After all, water that doesn’t flow into the sea has an impact just like water that does!
There are several provisions of the treaty that have been the focus of U.S. Presidents’ objections since Ronald Regan first labeled it as opposed to free enterprise and economic freedom throughout the world.
The treaty calls for every signatory nation (more than 150 now) to be allowed to share the technology of every other nation. In other words, the US companies which have invested heavily in developing technology to explore or drill or recover sea bed minerals will simply have to give all of their technology to any other nation which has signed the treaty. But without money, much of that new technology would be difficult to employee. Therefore, the LOST also provides for massive wealth transfers in the order of 50% of all revenues derived from the sea!
But giving away our technology and half the revenues from development of resources from the sea may not be the worst problem facing our national security and sovereignty. Article 20: “In the territorial sea, submarines and other underwater vehicles are required to navigate on the surface and to show their flag.” Of course “territorial waters” are redefined as economic control zones and permitted to be extended to 200 miles off shore.
Moreover, in disputes before the judicial authority established by this treaty, enforcement responsibilities fall to such bodies as ITLOS, which is comprised of many nations with a history of positions opposed to the interests of the United States. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), created by the the treaty, is comprised of representatives of 36 countries, the majority of which can not be counted on to support U.S. positions. Its membership includes representatives from the Sudan, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Kenya, Guyana, Argentina, Russia and Myanmar, among others.
In addition to defense and economy, LOST also allows environmentalists to use the treaty to achieve through these new world institutions those policies and regulations they have never been able to enforce through domestic laws. This is evidenced by a published statement from Greenpeace which said, “The benefits of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea are substantial, including its basic duties for states to protect and preserve the marine environment and to conserve marine living species.”
As an indication of the scope of jurisdiction LOST tribunal will take, Ireland sought ITLOS’s help in forcing the United Kingdom to abandon its planned opening of the Sellafield MOX plant, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in north-eastern England, arguing that it would contribute to pollution of the North Sea.
If the Senate approves this treaty, Obama has indicated he will sign it immediately. It will then have the governing authority equal to a Constitutional Ammendment and be every bit as difficult to repeal, if not moreso.
The full text of the treaty is exhaustive. Quality and objective summaries are readily available. But, with so much power and money at stake for those who would benefit from passage, it is imperative that readers understand the one point that is not in dispute by supporters and opponents is that the control of the world’s environment and all its resources will be under the jurisdiction of the tribunal of nations under the name of the International Seabed Authority and whoever this group decides to delegate authority. The U.S. Constitution and our Supreme Court will no longer be our final authority in law.
Tags: authority, Colorado, control, environment, International Seabed Authority, LOST, money, month, nation, Obama, Question, security, Senate, support, technology, United Nations, United States, US, use, water
Trackback • Posted by Craig Masters in General News category
Please leave a reply...
© 2010 - 2013 Northern Colorado Gazette , PO Box 6, Greeley CO 80632 • All Rights Reserved •
| Powered By Zera Communications | Follow us |  |
 |  |
Entries(RSS)
You have so much wrong in so little space that I can’t address it all, but let me hit a few points. Before I do I want to point out the most egregious error in the claim that President Bust “rebuked” in 2007. Actually, in May, 2007 President Bush said:
Now, on the a few other mistakes in the article:
First, the US is not in danger of having disputes over environmental disputes over our rivers taken to court – the convention makes clear those are sovereign areas of all coastal states. The convention limits international environmental disputes to cases “when it is alleged that a coastal State has acted in contravention of specified international rules and standards for the protection and preservation of the marine environment which are applicable to the coastal State.” By both US and international law, that means we have to agree to such international rules before they apply to us.
Second, the International Tribunal did not force the MOX plant to close. In fact, the Tribunal found that it did not have jurisdiction and deferred to a European treaty where it was decided. Deference to other treaties is another protection sought by, and obtained, by the US in the negotiations. And by the convention itself, we do not have to go to the tribunal even on the subset of issues it addresses. Unless we chose otherwise, any dispute involving the US will go to an arbitral panel (which was the position of the United States throughout the negotiations.
Third, every critical decision of the International Seabed Authority has to have consensus of the governing Council, and thanks to President Reagan, we have a permanent seat on the Council – giving us a veto over its rules and regulations, over any amendments to the seabeds provisions, over distribution plans for any revenues and over any other adjustment assistance. And since the ISA will manage funds received from other states, the US will abdicate its right to oversee how those funds are distributed if we aren’t party to the convention.
Fourth, the ISA has been operating for 18 years and we can judge it by its work instead of by unfounded fear. There are 12 mining operations involving 14 nations that have been recognized by the ISA that are conducting exploration and technology development.The ISA has approved all applicants, both from industrialized and developing countries based on an objective checklist that is open to everyone to review.
Fifth, the provisions that once could have allowed for mandatory sale of technology (not for free but on “fair and reasonable commercial terms and conditions”) were eliminated in 1994 in accordance with President Reagan’s criteria for an acceptable convention. The remaining reference to ‘transfer of technology’ include commercial sale and do not require transfer.
Sixth, deep seabed mining was President’s primary interest in the LOS Convention. His first choice was to fix the seabed mining provisions of the convention. When that wasn’t successful he sought an agreement between the countries with seabed mining technology. But when Reagan’s desired changes were made to the Convention in 1994, all the other seabed mining countries joined. Now the US is on the outside looking in, with no access to foreign recognition of title to recovered minerals or exclusive rights to its sites, without access to key mineral processing technology and without access to investors for up to $2 billion required for a single mine. Furthermore, Lockheed Martin, the last surviving US seabed mining company, recently stated that there will be no seabed mining by US companies outside the Convention’s framework. Staying outside the convention will kill Reagan’s dream of a secure source of critical minerals from the ocean.
The energy, shipping, fishing and telecommunications industries all want the US to join the Convention. every living Chief of Naval Operations, every living commandant of the coast guard says the US needs to join, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed it on May 9th. I trust them a lot more than a few think tanks that are loose with the facts.
This article is fundamentally wrong. The US and the Soviet Union were in the forefront of pushing for a treaty to ensure navigation rights in straits and more. The waters of the Colorado River are not covered by the LOS treaty. There are no provisions for mandatory sharing of technology. The US is the only nation with a guaranteed seat on the Council of the Seabed Authority and will have a veto, that’s right a veto, over proposed rules and regulations with which we disagree. Without the US being party to the treaty, US mining companies will not, that’s right will not, mine the deep seabed under US flag. They can mine under a foreign flag. The deep seabed provisions provide for guaranteed access, under reasonable conditions, coupled with security of tenure. Presidents Bush, the first and the second, supported the US becoming party to the LOS treaty. There are many more clear errors of fact in the article, which is a bit awkward for you. Will you print a correction?