American Sovereignty and The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)
By John W. Wallace
Candidate for Congress
New York’s 20th Congressional District
www.johnwallaceforcongress.com
On October 31, 2007, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations voted to ratify the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) by a vote of 17-4. With
this vote, the committee basically voted to surrender American sovereignty to the corrupt
United Nations and the new world order. With the committee's approval, the full Senate
will now be faced with a final vote on ratification of the treaty. Under the Law of the Sea
Treaty, a 12-mile territorial sea limit and a 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ)
limit would be established. This sets a definitive limit on the oceanic area over which any
country may claim jurisdiction.
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) was first conceived in the early 1980’s by the United
Nations as a method for them to gain control of most of the activities on, over, and
beneath the ocean's surface. The fundamental premise of the Law of the Sea Treaty is that
the resources on the ocean's floor belong to all of the people of the world and those
resources should be protected and controlled by an international organization like the
United Nations. Although that is a noble sounding goal, in order to achieve this goal, the
United Nations has created a multinational bureaucracy called the International Seabed
Authority ("ISA") and charged them with regulating and controlling the world’s mineral
resources in the oceans.
Proposed regulations require private companies that want to mine in international waters
to submit substantial application fess to the ISA, which in turn the ISA could use for its
own mining efforts through its own mining subsidy, called the Enterprise. Corporations
from member nations operating in international waters would have to pay annual fees and
even a percentage of their profits to the ISA. These corporations would also be expected
to share their mining and navigational technology with third world countries to ensure
that opportunities aren't restricted to more technologically advanced countries. The
decision to grant or to withhold mining permits in international waters would now be
decided by bureaucrats at the United Nation’s International Seabed Authority.
U.S. adherence to this treaty would entail the biggest and most unwarranted surrender of
our nation’s sovereignty in our country’s history. I urge members of the U.S. Senate not
to ratify the “Law of the Sea” Treaty for the following reasons:
1. The treaty would essentially give the United Nations, a notoriously corrupt
organization, the power to assert control over 70% of the earth’s surface through the
International Seabed Authority (ISA),
2. Through the ISA, the United Nations would be given the power to levy international
fees and taxes on American companies. Mining approvals would be highly politicized
and could discriminate against American operators.
3. The United Nations, through the ISA, would be given the power to regulate ocean
research, exploration, fishing, marine environmental protection and navigation. They
could even impose production quotas and licensing requirements on American
fishermen operating in international waters.
4. The United Nations, through the ISA, would be given the power to create a
multinational court system to render and enforce its judgments! If we agree to this
provision, we will be surrendering our sovereignty by subjecting ourselves to the
jurisdiction of some international court.
5. The treaty calls for prosperous member nations to provide financial and technical
assistance not only to developing countries, but also to "people who have not attained
full independence or other self-governing status" (codeword for groups such as the
PLO).
6. The most important objection concerns Article 314 of The Law of the Sea Treaty
(located in Part XVII) that empowers the LOST member Assembly, dominated by
nations of the developing world, to amend the terms of the treaty over the objection of
any individual member state. In other words, the terms of the treaty could be changed
significantly and the United States would have to abide by those changes without the
U.S. Senate having the opportunity to consent to the changes.
Every U.S. senator should review Article 314 of the Law of the Sea Treaty and Article II,
Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution before they vote on the ratification of this treaty. Our
Constitution requires that two thirds of our Senate must approve any treaty. When
changes to any treaties are made, our Senators have the authority and responsibility to
review those changes and not surrender our sovereignty to UN bureaucrats and foreign
governments!
John Wallace is a self-employed businessman and also host a call-in blog talk radio show. He was a police officer for 30+ years, authored a book about a WWII Prisoner of War, and was a candidate for congress in NY’s 20th congressional district. He considers himself to be a mostly Conservative person who is concerned about the loss of our individual freedoms and liberties, as well as our nation’s sovereignty.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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