Two Treaties To Watch In The Senate

There are two treaties coming up for a vote in the Senate in the near future. The first is the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. That treaty is expected to be finalized by July 27.

On Wednesday, an article in the Washington Times detailed some of the details of the treaty:

The criteria that arms should not be used to “prolong” or “aggravate” instability is troubling. China could use such a provision to label U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as a violation of international law. In 1941, such a treaty would have made illegal the U.S. lend-lease program to aid Britain before Pearl Harbor.

The implication is absurd: If giving arms to an ally fighting a tyrant prolongs the conflict, the only “legal” option for the ally is to surrender.

Another problem is the draft’s invocation of “international human rights law.” Unfortunately, liberal activists often claim that strict gun control is a “human right.” This reference, then, could be interpreted in ways that infringe on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.

Why should we care what some U.N. treaty says? Just ignore it, you say, because our Constitution trumps everything. Well, not if the U.S. signs and the Senate ratifies it. At that point, the treaty carries the weight of U.S. domestic law.

The second treaty coming to the Senate is the Law Of The Sea Treaty (appropriately called LOST). Forbes Magazine posted an article about both treaties on Tuesday.

In discussing the LOST treaty, the article states:

Then there’s the currently proposed, Obama-endorsed, Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which would subordinate U.S. naval and drilling operations beyond 200 miles of our coast to a newly established U.N. bureaucracy. If ratified by Congress, it will grant a Kingston, Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) the power to regulate deep-sea oil exploration, seabed mining, and fishing rights. As part of the deal, as much as 7% of U.S. government revenue collected from oil and gas companies operating off our coast will be forked over to ISA for redistribution to poorer, landlocked countries.

The U.S. would have one vote out of 160 regarding where the money would go, and be obligated to hand over offshore drilling technology to any nation that wants it… for free. And who are those lucky international recipients? They will most likely include such undemocratic, despotic and brutal governments as Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe…all current voting members of LOST.

Does either one of these treaties represent the country you want your children to inherit? Is American sovereignty important to you? The Senate switchboard telephone number is 202-224-3121. If you believe in upholding the Second Amendment of the Constitution and if you believe America should be able to control its own offshore waters, please call your Senator and ask him to vote against both of these treaties.

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Two Different Opinions On A Treaty

Yesterday Politico posted an article by Senator John Kerry giving his views on why America needs to ratify the Law of The Sea Treaty (LOST). On Monday, the Center for Security Policy posted an article on why America should not ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty. I suggest you read both and then draw your own conclusions.

There are, however, a few things I would like to point out. This treaty has been kicking around since the 1980’s when President Reagan strongly opposed it because of its negative impact on American sovereignty.

Some basic problems with the LOST treaty (aptly named):

 “Article 81 of the treaty would require the US. and all nations to pay a
 portion of royalties from the use of the sea’s natural resources to the
 International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica. If ratified this
 nation would be required to transfer part of any royalties realized from
 the drilling of oil resources found on the U.S. continental shelf —
 defined as 200 nautical miles or more from shore — for redistribution to
 poorer, landlocked countries. This could amount to billions of dollars.”

The treaty would give a U.N. body veto power over the use of U.S. territorial
water and to which we’d be required to give half of our offshore oil
revenue to third world countries.”

I don’t claim to be unbiased in this discussion, but there are a few obvious things going on here. This is an election year. There is a very good chance that the Senate that would  be voting on the LOST treaty will not be the same Senate that will be in Washington in January. Why is the Senate voting on this now? It is not a time-sensitive issue and should not be voted on in what will most certainly be a lame-duck Senate. There is also a strong possibility that as Americans make plans for their summer vacations, they are not paying attention to what is going on in Washington. This is the Senate equivalent of the Friday afternoon document dump–the Senate wants to do this while no one is looking.

This treaty needs to be voted down. Hopefully, the Senators in Congress will realize that.

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What Would LOST Mean ?

Frank Gaffney posted an article at Townhall.com about the Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST) which may come up in the lame-duck session of the Senate at the end of the year. The treaty essentially will give the United Nations control over all waterways and set up a justice system at the United Nations that all nations would be under. In a few words, it is a direct threat to American sovereignty.

The article reports:

First, as Senator Lott once warned, ratification of LOST would commit the United States to submit to mandatory dispute resolution with respect to U.S. military and industrial operations. While LOST proponents argue that the United States will choose available arbitration mechanisms to avoid legal decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), such arbitration panels are no-less perilous for U.S. interests as the decisive, “swing” arbiters would be appointed by generally unfriendly UN-affiliated bureaucrats. The arbitration panels can also be relied upon to look to rulings by the ICJ or ITLOS to inform their own decisions.

Furthermore, while there is a LOST provision exempting “military activity” from such dispute resolution mechanisms, the Treaty makes no attempt to define “military activity,” virtually guaranteeing that such matters will be litigated – in all likelihood to our detriment – before one or another of LOST’s arbitration mechanisms. And the rulings of such arbitrators cannot be appealed.

I don’t think this is what our founding fathers had in mind.

The article concludes:

Of particular concern is the fact that LOST creates an international taxation regime. It does so by empowering the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to tax Americans for the purposes of meeting its ownadministrative costs and of globally redistributing revenue derived from the exploitation of seabed resources.

It is a travesty to portray atreaty with such clearly sovereignty-sapping provisions as an enhancement to our national sovereignty. LOST should be rejected this time – as President Ronald Reagan did thirty years ago and as Senator Lott urged twenty-five years later.

The UN has shown a definite lack of wisdom in selecting members of its Human Rights Commission, do we really want them to exercise any control over America?

 

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