Law of the Sea Treaty

This massive give away to the UN is not quite "new" news but it is coming dangerously close to ratification and needs to be stopped.

Deep-Six The
Law Of The Sea

By Phyllis Schlafly

May 25, 2007

 Borrowing the famous words of General Douglas MacArthur that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away," we can now see that old treaties never die, they can be resurrected years or even decades after taking what we thought was a knockout punch.

President George W. Bush is scheduled to announce any day that he will breathe new life into the old United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which President Ronald Reagan rejected in 1982. Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has asked Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) to secure Senate ratification "as early as possible."

To defuse expected opposition, the Bush Administration has been pursuing a most unusual lobbying campaign: inviting two or three prominent conservatives at a time to the White House without telling them in advance the purpose of the invitation or who will be present. After admission past executive office barricades, the conservatives are subjected to aggressive lobbying by Administration heavy hitters: usually the chief counsel for the State Department and the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy.

The 202-page Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) entered into force in 1994 and has been ratified by 153 countries. The LOST created the International Seabed Authority (ISA), giving it total jurisdiction over all the oceans and everything in them, including the ocean floor with "all" its riches ("solid, liquid or gaseous mineral resources"), along with the power to regulate seven/tenths of the world's surface.

Headquartered in Jamaica, the ISA has an Assembly, a Council, a bureaucracy, and commissions, all drawing tax-free salaries. If the United States ratifies the treaty, we would have the same vote in the ISA as Cuba, an unprecedented surrender of American sovereignty, independence of action, and wealth.

Even worse, the LOST gives the ISA the power to levy international taxes. We are not fooled by the LOST's attempt to conceal this by labeling the taxes assessments, fees, permits, payments, or contributions.

The real purpose of the taxing power is to compel the United States to pay billions of private-enterprise dollars to the ISA bureaucrats, who can then transfer our wealth to socialist, anti-American nations (euphemistically called "developing countries") ruled by corrupt dictators. The LOST piously asserts that this is for "the benefit of mankind as a whole."

The LOST gives the ISA the power to regulate "all" ocean research and exploration and to deny access to strategic ocean minerals, many of which we need for our national defense or industries. The LOST gives the ISA the power to impose production quotas for deep-sea mining and oil production.

The ISA can require us to share our intelligence, technology, and even military information. The Treaty puts restrictions on our intelligence-gathering by our submarines, activities that are essential to our national defense.

The LOST also created the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, with the power of a super-supreme court to decide all disputes and enforce its judgments. Of course, there is no guarantee that the United States would have even one judge on this 21-member international court, and it's reasonable to assume inherent bias against the United States by the anti-American countries whose representatives will make all decisions.

There can be no appeal from this Tribunal's decisions, even though they would affect our sovereignty, national security, and economic interests. There is no restriction on the Tribunal's jurisdiction.

Administration lobbyists claim that the original problems with the LOST have been fixed. That is not believable because the text of the treaty can't be changed unilaterally.

Bush apparently expects conservatives to be mollified by the argument that the Navy supports LOST. But conservatives are smart enough to know that it's impossible for the Navy to oppose the Commander in Chief's position.

The notion that our great U.S. Navy needs approval from foreign bureaucrats in Jamaica in order to enjoy passage through international straits, or for permission to do what our Navy is already doing (such as moving our ships to the waters near Iran), is offensive and insulting to U.S. sovereignty.

It's not only dangerous to our national security for the Administration to promote the Law of the Sea Treaty, it is a stupid political move that will diminish the shrinking percentage of conservatives who still support Bush. Now a lame-duck, Bush is ignoring his supporters and instead pushing the agenda of the globalists who are determined to erase our sovereign borders and integrate us into various multinational structures and tribunals.

Further reading: Law of the Sea Treaty/LOST

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I just heard today, that several prominent "news and broadcast people" were invited to the white house for a meeting. Maybe to tell them to make this sound good to Americans?

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Why is it that whenever these a**holes get together it's always to end, curtail, tax, impede, infringe, regulate, minimize, weaken, or put a stop to the rights of Americans?  And/or give, allow, encourage, or bestow them upon someone who has no right to them?  I'm gonna start my own damn country, anybody coming?

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I wrote Senator Inhofe about this L.O.S.T. and one of his aides called me back on it.  The aide said the Senator does not favor L.O.S.T and will vote against it.  I asked how much of a concern it is and was told "If you compared L.O.S.T. to S.1348, L.O.S.T would be measured miniscule."

I have not studied it, and do not have an opinion.

 

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Bush has a certain amount of favorates as far news people. Hes said as much openly. They tell the public what he wants and cooperates with the white house. I wouldnt call anything that gives our rights away miniscule. Im not sure why Inholf said that. One is here in our faces and the other part of the bigger picture. Both I think are equally dangerous.

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LOST would set up a whole new international beaurocracy to regulate, license and tax every ship that sails the sea and every mining, drilling or development of any sort under the sea.  The United States would agree to subjugate our National interests to this massive new beaurocracy.

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I think the aide meant the concern over it passing was miniscule compared to the concern over getting S.1348 killed.

I have been doing some reading on it.  President Reagan refused to sign it.  Clinton brought it back up and the Republican Senate refused to ratify it.  It has been dead for 10 years.

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/wm470.cfm

 

 

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It has, but Bush has brought it back and it is in the Senate now.  He is trying to sneak it through. Who?  Bush?  Sneak something by on us?? 

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God help us.

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Just keep reminding yourselves of how much worse it would be if Gore or Kerry were in President!!  Our country would have already been handed over to mexicans or Islamonazis & we'd be taking our mandated Prozac while apologizing to Allah for letting our WTC towers get in the way of his followers' hijacked planes.  We'd be engaged in hand-to-hand combat with aliens from mexico & the Mid East, in the streets of America.

We win battles against Bush.  This may be another one we have to fight to maintain our soverignty.

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bugsygirl said: Bush has a certain amount of favorates as far news people. Hes said as much openly. They tell the public what he wants and cooperates with the white house. I wouldnt call anything that gives our rights away miniscule. Im not sure why Inholf said that. One is here in our faces and the other part of the bigger picture. Both I think are equally dangerous.

 

I don't understand how Bush has been so lucky with the press, they just kind of roll over and pee in the air like beaten dogs when it has come to him, from day one, ie his suspected cocaine use, he said NO I won't talk about it and they let it drop!!  Gee, I remember Clinton saying that about Monica and they just SWARMED the story 24/7.  Maybe WH sex is more important a story  than underming the freedoms of the United States or selling out the country to Mexico???  Time and time again this administration has just walked all over our basic freedoms and what we stand for, and gotten a pass by the supposed investigative press. 

Scheeeshhhhh, the "entertainment tonite-ing" of American news, any gossip type story is more important than the real hard news stories....

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VeeBee, your glasses are on backwards.  The reason the press covered only the sex thing with Clinton is they were too embarrassed that their man allowed the sale of missile guidance systems to the Chinese.  Before that they had no way of getting a nuclear bomb here.  Now they do.  They found trivial stuff to write about to avoid his treason & other high crimes.  Notice how little press his rape victims got?  Too serious!!

On the other hand, what have you read in the press about the nuclear & bilogical weapons found in Iraq?  How about the terrorist training camp that kept a plane fuselage to practice hijacking?  These items get mentioned maybe once then are ignored. 

The press is clearly pro-Clinton/ socialist & anti-Bush/anti-American!!

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nwind said: It has, but Bush has brought it back and it is in the Senate now.  He is trying to sneak it through. Who?  Bush?  Sneak something by on us?? 

 

Not something he can sneak through, nwind.  Who has introduced it to the Senate?  The President cannot do that.  Must be Kennedy again.  President Reagan had a Democrat Senate to work with.  They passed it and he would not sign it.  The Republican Senate refused to bring it up for Clinton.  Now we have a RINO president who wants it, but we sent the Democrat controlled Senate a message once just a month ago.  We can send them another.

 

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Video: Law of the Sea Treaty LOST
Requires FLASH and JavaScript

Videos at Youtube, Part I and Part II.

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unfortunately, the United States is already under the Law of the Sea.  Its called the Law of the High Seas - Admiralty Law.  This is why court rooms fly a flag with a golden fringe, its a Naval Flag.  This is why your car has a VIN number - its a Vessel ID Number, check it out.  Most of our minor laws are Law of the Sea, it looks like this will just Unify the ruling a bit more.

The US Navy does all the surveying of the land ...

and in each town you can find a cap on one of the major buildings that marks the water level - its marked at the top of the building!  Even in Colorado, making the town essentially underwater by a legal standpoint, and under the Law of the Seas.  Rediculous.  It will be nice to get our country back some day.

water level?

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I suppose The Army Corps. of Engineers has nothing to do with this? I am a Land Surveyor and Autocad drafting for the past 17 years. The US Navy does not do all The Land Surveying. Who do you think Survey's all of the beaches and puts Monuments in the ground for data control and elevation purposes? Surely not the Navy. Geodetic Control is done by The Army Corp of Engineers and their respectful employees. As far as the law of Sea? I have no idea about that. Benchmarks are a must for GPS and Geodetic Control. We use them every day. Land Surveyors that is. I have helped out The Army Corp of Engineers placing these Monuments. They must be done with precision and at the right height. I am not saying that The Navy doesn't do anything, but this is done souly from The Army Corp of Engineers. What they can't do, they hire in Engineering Firms. I know. Been there, done that, and stil do it as elevations, need for GPS Monuments are getting more and more useful for everything, especially in low lying area's. I have gone as high and even higher altitudes to place Geodatic Control for High Bridges at the top of the Spans and as low as Realtime lows in the Gulf of Mexico is concerned. I haven't begun to tell you about Mountains yet. I think you have a good thread here. This is my area of expertise. I'd like to see this thread continue on. Great post there nwind.

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I know this is about Law. I just thought I would make that clear as far as The Land goes.

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I am acting to advance U.S. interests in the world’s oceans in two important ways.

First, I urge the Senate to act favorably on U.S. accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea during this session of Congress. Joining will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our armed forces worldwide. It will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain. Accession will promote U.S. interests in the environmental health of the oceans. And it will give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted.

Second, I have instructed the U.S. delegation to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to submit a proposal for international measures that would enhance protection of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, the area including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Last June, I issued a proclamation establishing the Monument, a 1,200-mile stretch of coral islands, seamounts, banks, and shoals that are home to some 7,000 marine species. The United States will propose that the IMO designate the entire area as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) –- similar to areas such as the Florida Keys, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Galapagos Archipelago –- which will alert mariners to exercise caution in the ecologically important, sensitive, and hazardous area they are entering. This proposal, like the Convention on the Law of the Sea, will help protect the maritime environment while preserving the navigational freedoms essential to the security and economy of every nation.

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went back to check my sources from a video I watched a few weeks ago.  the speaker was refering to the brass cap high water marks, which are in every local county, which mark the high tide.  these brass caps are above water, over the land (obviously) and are used by the US Dept of Commerce, as well as oceanographic societies, etc.

the high water marks are not on top of buildings as I erroneously mentioned, but they do indicate the the water level is indeed over the land, and thus somehow legitimizes Admiralty law, or Commercial/banking law, to be acted upon the land.  In the past the only law of the land was civil or common law.

I think my posting here might have jumped the gun a bit over the Law of the Sea, I assumed they were related, as it was courts and judges and a call for one body to of judges to oversee all in germany or jamaica (depending on the part of the article). 

The law of the high seas has been on land for hundreds of years, whether its related to this UN resolution, which sounds like it will allow it to consolidate all the courts in the world into one group, and GW wants to make sure we have a judge on that panel.  not sure how this is different than the world court in the Hague. 

not sure, sorry for any confusion, law ain't easy.