Sink the Law of the Sea Treaty! The Bush administration is pushing for ratification of the UN's Law of the Sea Treaty, which would give control of the oceans and their riches to the world body.

Conservative Americans who consider George W. Bush a champion of national sovereignty have been shocked to learn that the president seeks Senate ratification of the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Despite the Senate's refusal thus far to ratify the treaty, it went into effect in 1995, and elements of the vast regulatory apparatus it outlines are already in operation.

When fully implemented, LOST would consummate the largest act of territorial conquest in history, turning seven-tenths of the Earth's surface over to the jurisdiction of the United Nations. It would create a mammoth bureaucracy to regulate exploration of the ocean depths and commercial development of the seabed's riches. The UN would also be empowered to collect royalties on seabed mining, thereby providing the world body with a potentially enormous independent source of revenue to fund its agenda for "global governance."

None of this seems compatible with the Bush administration's reputation for flinty-eyed defense of our national independence. Yet during her Senate confirmation hearings in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that the Bush administration "would certainly like to see [LOST] pass as soon as possible.... And we very much want to see it go into force."

"Joining the convention will advance the interests of the United States military," Rice claimed on January 18. "The United States, as the country with the largest coastline and the largest exclusive economic zone, will gain economic and resource benefits from the convention.... And the United Nations has no decision-making role under the convention in regulating uses of the oceans by any state party to the convention."

Rice's unqualified endorsement of LOST lets several important questions go begging. For instance: why is it necessary to sign a UN treaty in order to enjoy "economic and resource benefits" from ocean territory we already own and control? If the UN would have no role in regulating the use of oceans within our sphere of influence, how would it be in a position to grant us the "economic and resource benefits" referred to by Rice?

But nobody present at Secretary Rice's confirmation hearings was inclined to ask such pointed questions. Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a noted Republican internationalist who supports ratifying LOST, was delighted by Rice's rapturous endorsement of the pact.

"I particularly appreciate your response on the Law of the Sea Convention," commented Lugar, making specific reference to Rice's assertion that the treaty was compatible with U.S. national security interests. "That's clearing up an issue sometimes raised by opponents of the convention," continued the senator, referring to widespread criticism of the pact as an infringement on U.S. sovereignty. He also cited Rice's statement that LOST "does not provide for or authorize taxation of individuals or corporations" and concluded: "I cannot think of a stronger administration statement in support of the Law of the Sea Convention."

Detailing the Deception

So great is the administration's desire to implement LOST that its supporters are blatantly misrepresenting the treaty's provisions.

Contrary to Rice's claim that "the United Nations has no decision-making role under the convention in regulating uses of the oceans by any state party to the convention," Article 2, paragraph 3 of the treaty explicitly states: "The sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to the Convention and to other rules of international law." As applied to our country, the phrase "territorial sea" refers to territory presently belonging to the United States. Under LOST, U.S. sovereignty over that territory would, in principle, be ceded to the UN.

Rice's claim that LOST "does not provide for or authorize taxation of individuals or corporations" is similarly dishonest. However, getting to the truth of the matter requires wading through page after page of murkily written bureaucratic language.

Article 170 of LOST describes the "Enterprise," a UN organ that would supervise all scientific, commercial, and military use of "the Area"--all regions of the world's oceans, including the seabed and superadjacent atmosphere, beyond the territorial limits of coastal nations.

The "Enterprise" has yet to be created. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) and its ruling "Council," however, are up and running in Kingston, Jamaica. The ISA claims the power to enact rules and regulations governing the use of the seas. Article 171, dealing with "Funds of the Authority," lists "assessed contributions" and "funds received by the Authority ... in connection with activities in the Area...."

Annex 3, Article 13 of the treaty sets out the "Financial terms of contracts" between the UN's Enterprise and private interests seeking to develop seabed resources. Any private firm seeking to conduct mining operations must pay an administrative fee of $500,000, in addition to an annual royalty to $1 million--with those figures subject to revision by the Council. Within a year of commercial production, the treaty continues, "a contractor shall choose to make his financial contribution to the Authority by either a) paying a production charge only; or b) paying a combination of a production charge and a share of net proceeds." Contractors who choose the first approach, predictably, will have to pay a much higher fee than those who choose the latter. But in either case, they will be paying excise taxes to the UN-created "Enterprise."

Beyond the Dreams of Avarice 

The UN and its controlling elite have long sought to establish a revenue stream circumventing national legislative bodies, particularly the U.S. Congress. Collecting royalties on the commercial use of the seabed--an incomparable treasure trove--would leave the UN awash in literally trillions of dollars. The riches of the ocean depths were inaccessible until after World War II, when Western commercial interests--particularly U.S. energy companies--began to develop the technological means to explore and mine the seabed.

"Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth's surface and are storage tanks for minerals washed from the land by streams, floods, and tides," observed the late Dan Smoot, a former FBI agent and widely admired constitutional scholar. "Each cubic mile of seawater contains 165 million tons of solid material, including all precious and industrial metals. Enormous deposits of critically important materials--oil, gas, sulphur, salt, diamonds--lie beneath the water of the oceans. The oceans are also rich in foodstuffs that man already uses, and in organic substances which man will learn to convert into food." Seawater itself abounds in vitally important minerals such as bromine and magnesium.

An estimated 10 trillion tons of manganese--vital for producing steel, and not found in the continental United States--is found in potato-shaped nodules scattered across the ocean floor. Harvesting those nodules became possible in the late 1960s when a U.S.-based firm called Deepsea Ventures invested $200 million to develop the means of excavating the sea floor at depths of one to three miles.

Even without U.S. participation, the UN-created International Seabed Authority is supervising the process of mapping out new underwater territories. "A group of ocean mappers at the University of New Brunswick [UNB] is redrawing the world's oceans under new rules set by the United Nations, divvying up trillions of dollars worth of natural resources in huge chunks of the sea floor," reported CBC News on January 29, 2003. "Countries have six years to make the case for where their boundaries should be, creating what UNB mapper David Monahan calls the largest land grab in human history."

"I think of it as the world's ocean being divided up by this treaty, that's two thirds of the world's surface," commented Monahan. "It's almost mind boggling to think of how big it is." The vast ocean floor contains an estimated 20 percent of the world's oil and gas deposits, as well as other potential energy sources, such as frozen methane. "The amounts of methane we know about [are] probably enough to run the world for 80 to 100 years," Monahan pointed out.

The seas would yield resources adequate to meet the energy and food needs of the growing human population--if the private sector were permitted to develop them. Under customary law dating back to the time of Justinian, the seas were free to be used by anyone with adequate means to do so. On that principle, development of deep-sea resources beyond national borders, including the seabed, should be open to entrepreneurs willing to take the necessary risks and make the necessary investments.

But the UN, true to its Marxist pedigree, is seeking to lock down control over the seas and exploit them for its own ends--in the name of "mankind."

"Common Heritage" Gambit

Socialism is based on a proposition best phrased as follows: "What's mine is mine; what's yours is ours." That is to say, through the coercive power of the State, private property becomes collective property, managed by a supervisory elite. The same logic lurks in the expression "common heritage of mankind."

That seemingly innocent phrase was coined by the United Nations in 1967, when the world body was led by Burmese Marxist U Thant (who praised founding Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin as the inspiration for the UN's concept of "peaceful coexistence"). The UN would eventually attach the "common heritage" label to Antarctica, the atmosphere, Outer Space, and the Earth's oceans.

By designating something the "common heritage of mankind," the UN seeks to globalize Marx's formula, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Only a few societies have developed the technological means to make profitable use of the ocean depths or Outer Space. But the UN insists that the benefits that flow from those pioneering efforts must be shared with all nations--including those suffering under corrupt, collectivist regimes that make such innovation impossible.

LOST represents the first, and most significant, application of the UN's "common heritage" concept. According to article 136 of LOST, "The Area and its resources are the common heritage of mankind." Article 137 elaborates that "All rights in the resources of the Area are vested in mankind as a whole, on whose behalf the Authority shall act."

This triumph of maritime Marxism was a joint production of the UN and the administration of "conservative" Republican Richard Nixon.

In December 1969, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution banning the exploration of the ocean floor beyond each nation's territorial limits, pending the completion of an international seabed treaty. In May of the following year, U.S. President Richard Nixon offered a counter-proposal calling on all nations to adopt a treaty renouncing all claims to undersea resources beyond a depth of 200 meters. All undersea mining and other resource development, whether carried out by government or private interests, would pay royalties to a supervisory international body (the envisioned "Enterprise"). The resulting revenue would be distributed as "development assistance" to Third World nations.

In brief, Washington's "outraged" reaction to the UN's attempt to claim the oceans was to provide the world body with a detailed schematic for accomplishing its design.

Beginning in 1973, the UN conducted a series of international conferences to create a workable convention on the Law of the Sea. In those negotiations, Washington displayed an almost indecent eagerness to consummate Nixon's proposed sell-out. In a desperate bid to win acceptance for an early draft of the treaty, reported the September 2, 1976 San Francisco Chronicle, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger offered "to help developing nations set up their own international seabed mining operations."

That is, the U.S. taxpayers would subsidize the giveaway of mining technologies to economic competitors in order to entice those same nations to agree to a treaty intended to lock up UN control over the oceans. That proposal is enshrined today in Annex 3, Article 13, subsection (d) of LOST, which describes one objective of the "Enterprise" as inducing seabed contractors to agree to transfer mining technology, and provide technical training, to "the Authority and [to] developing States."

Incredible as it may seem, Kissinger's offer didn't placate the socialist bloc that dominated the Law of the Sea conferences. Calling themselves the Group of 77 "developing" nations (or G-77), this socialist lobby induced the UN General Assembly to approve a "Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order" in 1974. That declaration was a manifesto demanding what Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute calls "Totalitarian Global Management"--including "redistribution of natural, financial, and technological resources."

When LOST was completed in 1982, the Reagan administration, confronted with insurmountable opposition in the Senate, refused to sign the agreement. Twelve years later, the Clinton administration signed the agreement, but declined to submit it for Senate ratification, recognizing that the votes simply were not there. With the ratifying votes from 50 UN member states, the treaty went into force 10 years ago. To date, 145 nations have ratified the pact, which in 2002 was described by South Korean official Tommy Koh, president of the 3rd UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, as "a comprehensive constitution for the oceans" covering "every aspect of the uses and resources of the sea."

Private Enterprise, or UN "Enterprise"?

If made available to commercial development, the sea floor could provide ample resources to deal with our increasing energy needs. Turning management of the seabed over to the UN would provide that corrupt body with unfathomable wealth--potentially running into the trillions of dollars--to fund its agenda for global control.

However, largely because the Senate has yet to ratify LOST, the "Enterprise" has yet to go into operation. But this does not mean that the U.S. government has remained aloof from the LOST "process." As with other elements of the comprehensive UN agenda, Washington has been implementing elements of LOST piecemeal.

During a briefing at the June 2004 G-8 summit at the Sea Island resort off Georgia's Atlantic coast, Jim Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, was asked about a possible U.S. role in creating the "Enterprise," once the Senate ratified LOST. Connaughton's revealing answer described the "Law of the Sea Treaty" as "an important component ... that we've now been working with for nearly 30 years.... [T]he U.S. Government has actually been implementing nearly every, chapter of the Law of the Sea Treaty since it was first adopted. We are now looking for Senate ratification in order to ... make some improvements to sections regarding the very economic enterprises we talked about, especially the deep-sea mining components of that." (Emphasis added.)

The extent of the Bush administration's plans to implement LOST is illustrated by the Bush administration's U.S. Ocean Action Plan, published in December 2004. The objectives set forth in the Action Plan include the following: "Support Accession to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea." "As a matter of national security, economic self-interest, and international leadership, the Bush administration is strongly committed to U.S. accession to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea," declares the Action Plan, urging Senate ratification of the treaty "as early as possible in the [current] Congress."

As noted previously, U.S. ratification of LOST will place our territorial seas under UN jurisdiction. Additionally, the connectivity of waterways to the seas will provide the means of expanding UN jurisdiction over rivers and other tributaries within the borders of our nation. This principle is obliquely alluded to in the Bush administration's Action Plan: "The Administration will continue to work towards an ecosystem-based approach in making decisions related to water, land, and resource management in ways that do not erode local and State authorities and are flexible to local conditions." This will require creating "strong partnerships between Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments, the private sector, international partners, and other interests." (Emphasis added.)

Granted, language of this sort is difficult for most people to understand, since it was written by bureaucrats who deliberately avoid clarity of expression. Digested into simple English, the statement above means that most U.S. waterways would be considered subject to the terms of LOST.

Global Control

A suitable example of "ecosystem-based" resource management is the federal government's "White Water to Blue Water Initiative" (WW2BW). The State Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describe WW2BW as a "Sustainable Development Partnership" in the form of "an international alliance" of government agencies, UN-connected bodies, and radical environmental groups.

Although many Americans have never heard the phrase "sustainable development," the concept it refers to poses a critical threat to the way of life they enjoy. Unveiled by the UN in the late 1980s, "sustainable development" describes a vision in which the UN, acting as custodian of the planet, would regulate all human interaction with the biosphere. The concept is laid out, in exhausting detail, in Agenda 21--the mammoth eco-socialist blueprint created at the UN's 1993 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

David Sitarz, editor of the authoritative version of Agenda 21, points out: "Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced--a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level." Implementing Agenda 21, Sitarz continues, will require the active participation "by farmers and consumers, by students and schools, by governments and legislators, by scientists, by women, by children--in short, by every person on Earth." (Emphasis added.)

To put the concept of "sustainable development" into practice, the UN seeks to carve up the world into "bio-regions," which would be governed by councils of "stakeholders"--representatives of government agencies, international organizations, environmental activist groups, and so on. This is exactly the same mechanism described in WW2BW.

WW2BW is intended to implement numerous UN treaties, including LOST. Washington has spent millions of dollars to promote the program in collaboration with several foreign governments and numerous UN agencies.

Limited at present to the Caribbean, WW2BW is described as "a blueprint for future efforts in Africa and the South Pacific." Obviously, it would also serve as a blueprint for "ecosystem-based" resource management in the United States--once the Senate ratifies LOST. And it's reasonable to suspect that LOST would serve to extend the UN's global jurisdiction in much the same way that a perverted interpretation of the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause has been used since the New Deal era to expand federal jurisdiction over practically every commercial activity within the United States. Because all waterways are connected, all activities--such as farming, manufacturing, and recreation--having any impact on those waterways would be brought under the UN's jurisdiction.

Get LOST!

It's impossible to believe that a liberal Democrat president would be able to muster the political capital needed to secure Senate ratification of LOST. But as President Bush famously said following the November 2004 election, he intends to spend his political capital to enact his legislative agenda.

Because of misplaced partisan loyalty, there is at present little outspoken opposition to LOST among Republican senators. The February 7 Human Events" published comments from 10 Republican senators who were asked about ratifying LOST. Only one--Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe--was willing to go on record in frank opposition to the pact: "I will fight to the bitter end to oppose successful ratification."

Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee was studiously equivocal: "Both personally and representing leadership, I am not going to say how I would vote yet." Other GOP legislators were dismissive. "I'd have to look at it really closely again," commented George Allen of Virginia. "I don't think it's critical," yawned Alabama's Jeff Sessions. "You know, I haven't looked at it yet," shrugged Mike DeWine of Ohio.

It's entirely possible that the administration will seek to do with LOST what the first Bush administration did in 1992 to secure Senate approval of the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That treaty was ratified by anonymous voice vote, after midnight, as the Senate adjourned for vacation. No record exists as to the names of those senators who voted for that treaty. Given the obvious desire of Senate Republicans to support the president's agenda without incurring criticism from their constituents, it's not difficult to imagine the Senate leadership using the same cowardly tactic to ratify LOST.

But this must not be allowed to happen. Twice before, ratification of LOST has run aground on the formidable reef of public opposition. Americans committed to our national independence must ensure that the treaty is scuttled for good.

Why We Lose if LOST Wins

* By asserting UN authority over seven-tenths of the Earth's surface, LOST would be the largest territorial conquest in history.

* In principle, the treaty would assert UN jurisdiction over U.S. territorial waters, and eventually over waterways within our country.

* It would create a huge bureaucratic entity called the "Enterprise" which would regulate and tax all commercial uses of the high seas.

* By taxing all efforts to develop the wealth of the seabed, the UN would be given a huge revenue stream, independent of national governments, to push its agenda for international socialism.

* The treaty would require the redistribution of cutting-edge technology from the U.S. to all governments in the "developing world," including extremely repressive governments.

Readers are encouraged to ask their senators to oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty. Go to www.thenewamerican.com/congress/contact.htm for congressional contact information.

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