Help STOP ratification of Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)

**** (LOST) is inconsistent with American security. As a party, the United States would be obliged to uphold myriad commitments at odds with our military practices and national interests, including one reserving the oceans exclusively for “peaceful purposes.” Proponents claim that military activities are exempt, but obligations such as those barring the use of territorial waters for intelligence collection or their transit by submerged submarines clearly set the stage for disputes that may well be decided against us. The treaty also requires the transfer of sensitive, militarily useful technologies to other nations and international organizations hostile to American interests. So-called “fixes” in the 1994 agreement do not alter this reality.

**** LOST is a back-door way to impose U.S. compliance with the Kyoto accord. It will be used by America’s economic competitors and strategic adversaries to interfere with our sovereign decisions concerning actions they deem to have unacceptable environmental impacts – probably with little regard to the costs to Americans and their businesses.

**** LOST would establish a precedent for international taxation. LOST empowers a multilateral International Seabed Authority (ISA) to administer deep seabed mining operations. This supranational ISA would impose fees, royalty requirements and other payments on American companies in order that they may exercise exploration and production rights they already enjoy. These forced arrangements would take money out of the American business revenue stream for an international government’s use – and would amount to a tax on Americans without representation.

**** LOST imposes requirements of other treaties and international standards that the U.S. has not accepted. If the U.S. joins LOST, it could be brought before a LOST tribunal for violating a totally different treaty – including a treaty that it has not even joined – as long as it relates, for example, to protecting the marine environment.

**** Ronald Reagan rejected this treaty – not just because of certain details associated with seabed mining, but because of the threat he rightly saw LOST represented to our sovereignty and national interests in its empowerment of supranational government. Representations that his concerns have been “fixed” by a 1994 agreement Bill Clinton’s administration negotiated are false. Key Reagan lieutenants like former National Security Advisor Bill Clark, former Counselor to the President and Attorney General Ed Meese and the late former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick have agreed that LOST remains unacceptably defective.

**** LOST empowers the United Nations. LOST is also known as the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” All LOST agencies are U.N. organizations, and the U.N. Secretary General plays an important role in administering the treaty. The U.N. has a track record of corruption and hostility to American and its allies, most recently evident in its entrusting to Libya and Iran decisions about an anti-Israel conference on “racism.” The UN’s multilateral agencies and bureaucrats cannot be trusted to oversee or administer 70% of the world’s surface covered by its oceans.

**** If the U.S. is a party to LOST, activist American judges could importing foreign or perhaps even “international” law into the courtroom. LOST creates precedents for replacing accountable, representative government under our Constitution with supranational bureaucratic arrangements that are non-transparent and wholly unaccountable.

**** In summary, America does not need to join LOST to protect its interests in the world’s oceans. A “seat at the table” in LOST agencies where we can be simply outvoted will not safeguard those interests. It will, however, oblige us to abide by the majority’s dictates. The U.S. already belongs to several multi-country organizations (for example, the Arctic Council) designed to solve regional oceans disputes, and can always exercise diplomacy with another country directly. In the final analysis, a navy second-to-none – the large and potent U.S. fleet we need today and for the foreseeable future – is a more certain basis for assuring freedom of the seas and our interests than a defective international treaty like LOST.

OTHER POWERFUL VOICES OPPOSING:

· Paul Weyrich of Free Congress Foundation: Possibly the Final Push for the Law of the Sea Treaty

· William P. Clark and Edwin Meese, 10-8-07 Another U.N. Power Grab

· Tom Marzullo, 5-18-07 Don't give U.N. keys to Earth's treasures

· Henry Lamb, 5-17-07 The thing won't die!

· Rebecca Hagelin, 5-17-07 How Americans lose under LOST

· Edwin Meese III, Baker Spring and Brett D. Schaefer, 5-16-07 The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: The Risks Outweigh the Benefits

· Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., 5-14-07 A L.O.S.T. Presidency

· Edwin Meese III, 4-25-05 Reagan Would Still Oppose Law of the Sea Treaty

· Ed Feulner commentary, 3-08-05 Out to Sea

· The Washington Times, 3-07-05 Skeptical Senate Eyes Sea Treaty

· Pat Buchanan column, 2-28-05 Should the U.N. be lord of the oceans?

· The Washington Times, 2-19-05 Conservatives denounce GOP support of treaty

· Letter (signed by Phyllis Schlafly and others) to Sen. Richard Lugar (PDF), Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 2-18-05

· Human Events, 1-28-05 Protect U.S. Sovereignty: Sink the Law of the Sea Treaty