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Big Trouble for Law of the Sea; The treaty that seemed ready to coast to passage in the Senate may be sunk as opponents reveal it is a U.N. boondoggle that only can benefit America's enemies
Insight on the News, April 27, 2004
Byline: J. Michael Waller, INSIGHT
A United Nations treaty awaiting confirmation before the Senate, national security experts warn, would, if approved, cripple the U.S. Navy, empower potential enemies including China, make the nation vulnerable to submarine cruise-missile attack, and help terrorists. Nonetheless, momentum has been building stealthily in the Senate to ratify the treaty. And this time Republicans can't point fingers at their liberal Democratic colleagues or even at the former Clinton administration. The culprits behind the sneak move, Capitol Hill sources say, are senior Republican senators and key figures in the administration of President George W. Bush.
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At issue is the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which has been in the works since the 1970s, when the Soviet Union and the so-called Non-Aligned Movement tried to use the United Nations to wrest control of the seas from the United States and its allies. Under LOST, a global U.N. agency called the International Seabed Authority (ISA) would take control of the world's oceans, seven-tenths of the earth's surface. The ISA would not be accountable to dues-paying members but would be a self-financing entity imposing a tax on countries that exploit natural resources on the ocean floor.
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan refused to sign the treaty, officially called the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). But President Bill Clinton signed it in 1994, claiming that provisions that attack U.S. interests had been changed, and asked the Senate to ratify it. The Republican-controlled Senate sat on it. Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) has been quietly but forcefully pushing LOST through the ratification process under a sense of priorities that mystifies some of his colleagues.
Lugar's committee has given LOST precedence over consideration of other pending international agreements to fight weapons proliferation and terrorism. In October 2003 the liberal Republican held two days of hearings and permitted only treaty supporters to testify. After a State Department official working on the Senate staff drafted the resolution of ratification, Senate sources tell Insight, the committee "refused" to provide other Senate armed services and intelligence committees with the text and opposed a State Department briefing sought by an Intelligence Committee staffer. Without listing names of those present, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by unanimous consent, advised passage of the treaty. Senate sources say proponents planned to bring LOST before the full Senate without debate for a voice vote that would have shielded lawmakers from certain public wrath.
State Department officials and Vice President Dick Cheney say they support the treaty because it provides an international legal framework for competition for the oceans' resources. A U.S. ambassador stated in 2002 that Washington supported ratification, saying, "We intend to work with the U.S. Senate to move forward on becoming a party."
Apparently President Bush, preoccupied with waging the war on terrorism and winning a second term in office, had never even heard of the treaty until earlier this year, when conservative friends brought it to his attention, sources close to the president say. By that time the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "unanimously" had recommended that the treaty be ratified even though its chairman never allowed a single critic to explain why the U.N. convention was a bad idea.
The treaty appeared ready to sail through the Senate without the customary discussion and troubleshooting until a handful of conservatives ran a sword through it in March. Some met with President Bush and alerted him about their concerns. "There is an element within the Bush administration that wants this treaty ratified," said Free Congress Foundation president Paul Weyrich, who is appealing to grass-roots activists to show their opposition. The pro-LOST element, according to Weyrich, gained "the upper hand."
Not for long. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, blew the whistle loud and long, and with a handful of others, magnified by talk-radio hosts including Rush Limbaugh and online news services such as WorldNetDaily.com, alerted grass-roots conservatives.
Sen. James Inhofe heard the call. Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Oklahoma Republican jumped into action, claiming jurisdiction over LOST because the convention governed environmental issues and his committee had not been alerted. He invited two informed witnesses: Peter Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense who had been following the development of the treaty for more than 30 years; and Gaffney, a former senior Reagan Pentagon official who has dissected other flawed treaties, including the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, and was a major force behind the discrediting and ultimate abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Unlike Lugar, Inhofe invited both sides to testify.
