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

Meanwhile, administration officials have been unable to answer simple questions about all of this. As Weyrich comments, "It is disturbing when the answer provided by the General Counsel to the question, 'Will Americans be stopped from searching suspicious foreign ships in our waters?' is, 'I don't know.'"

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How Communist China Invoked LOST to Obtain U.S. Naval Secrets

The United States already has allowed the People's Republic of China (PRC) to invoke provisions of the unratified Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) to acquire extremely sensitive naval technology. A Pentagon official whose job was to track Chinese attempts to obtain U.S. military technology says that the Clinton administration gave the PRC technology that has compromised American submarine movements and could enable Beijing, undetected, to run submarines immediately off the U.S. coast.

Calling itself a "pioneer investor" in ocean mining, Beijing demanded highly sensitive underwater technology from the United States under the pretext that it would be used to mine manganese nodules on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. "Unfortunately, the level of technology they were attempting to acquire greatly exceeded the level of capability that either the United States or our industrialized allies used in undertaking such work," said Peter Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

"The quality of the side-scanning sonar, deep-ocean bathymetric equipment, cameras, lights, remotely operated vehicles and associated submersible technology provided them the capability to locate, reach and destroy, or salvage early-warning and intelligence sensors vital to our national security," Leitner told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at a March 24 hearing.

"Additionally, such technology also imparted an offensive capability to our chief potential military adversary by enabling them to map any portion of the ocean or continental shelves to determine submarine routing schemes or underwater bastions where missile-launching or intelligence-gathering submarines may operate undetected just off the U.S. coast," Leitner said. "The ultimate nightmare would be a close-in, submarine-launched cruise-missile attack upon the continental U.S. to which we are completely vulnerable and defenseless."

Leitner fought a long and lonely battle to prevent Beijing from receiving the technology, but in 1994, under Bill Clinton, in his words, "The zealous advocates of the treaty in several government agencies saw to it that the technology was provided to the PRC so as not to undermine the 'spirit of the treaty.'"

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Concerns About the Law of the Sea Treaty

After the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prevented critics of LOST from testifying in 2003, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held its own hearing in late March 2004. Among the critics' concerns are that LOST and its International Seabed Authority (ISA) would have unprecedented powers to: