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The people who want to diminish American sovereignty and replace it with global governance continue to work incrementally toward their one-world goal through United Nations treaties. The Law of the Sea Treaty is one of the UN treaties that would grievously invade American sovereignty and also be a giant giveaway of U.S. wealth and resources. The treaty was negotiated under President Carter’s Administration, but then soundly rejected by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. Unfortunately, President Clinton (who never saw a UN treaty he didn’t like) resurrected it and signed it in 1994. Senator Jesse Helms then buried it in the bottom drawer. Suddenly this year, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, took it out of the drawer and persuaded the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to approve it. It could now be voted on by the full Senate at any time. Treaties can be ratified by 2/3rds of the Senators present. The Law of the Sea Treaty would cede sovereign control over practically all the riches at the bottom of the world's oceans to an International Seabed Authority. Its one-nation-one-vote governing setup assures control by Third World countries, while Uncle Sap would be expected to pay all the technology and investment costs to bring the sea’s minerals to the surface. The Law of the Sea Treaty gives the International Seabed Authority the power to set production controls for ocean mining on more than ¾ths of the earth’s surface, to control ocean exploration through permits and regulations, and to adjudicate disputes. Even worse, the Seabed Authority claims direct global taxing power and is touted as a model for other resource-related treaties that aspire to enjoy the power to levy taxes. The Law of the Sea Treaty is a trap that would compel the United States to pay billions of private-enterprise dollars to an international authority while socialist, anti-American nations harvest the profit. Its international control and regulations could deny U.S. companies access to strategic ocean minerals that we need for our industries and military defense. The Inter-national Seabed Authority has all sorts of extra rip-off powers. It can impose rigid production ceilings so the United States could never become self-sufficient with respect to strategic materials. The Law of the Sea Treaty would be a sellout of American interests far greater than even Jimmy Carter’s giveaway of the U.S. Canal at Panama. It would be a cave-in to the world-government advocates whose goal is global socialist governance in order to integrate American prosperity with Third World poverty until they are leveled. Ronald Reagan was right to reject this UN Treaty, and the Senate should make sure it is never ratified. |
