Senator Vitter Leads Assault On UN's Sea Treaty
By Cliff Kincaid
October 1, 2007
Page 3 of 4
Bellinger told the Senate that the U.S. has a seat on the Council of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and has a "veto" over its decisions. This is a body that collects taxes - dubbed "fees" or "royalties" by Bellinger and Negroponte - and then decides how to distribute them. Later, however, Bellinger conceded that the decisions of the Council will be made through "consensus," which makes our so-called vote subservient to the dictates of the rest of the members. Of course, a liberal U.S. President such as Hillary Clinton, whose executive branch will determine the American vote on the Council, would most likely go along with the "consensus" anyway. Once it gets its hands on profits from the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals, the ISA could give billions of dollars to the anti-American Third World. With this kind of money changing hands, it seems inevitable that another oil-for-food-type scandal could develop. There are no provisions in the treaty for monitoring the ethical behavior of Law of the Sea treaty bureaucrats and employees.
Administration officials falsely and repeatedly claimed that the international bodies set up by the treaty have no official involvement with the United Nations. In fact, the International Seabed Authority and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea have written and formalized agreements with the U.N. Their employees even belong to the U.N. pension fund. The treaty itself has numerous references to the authority of the U.N., emphasizing how the pact is to be implemented in accordance with the U.N. Charter.
Lugar and the One-Worlders
Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate committee and long-time advocate of the treaty, turned in an embarrassing performance as well. Lugar, who has accepted campaign contributions from the Citizens for Global Solutions, a pro-world government lobby, attacked critics of the pact as conspiracy theorists who were exaggerating the dangers of the pact. He attacked an ad that my group, America's Survival, had put in the Washington Times on Wednesday, saying it was misleading. In fact, the claims were based on the text of the treaty and official U.N .documents. I have been denied the opportunity to testify to set the record straight, which is another indication that the treaty is being rushed through before the American people can understand its ominous implications.
Noting the outrage over the attempt to pass the Senate illegal alien amnesty bill, which also involved the issue of national sovereignty, Senator Jim DeMint said this was the wrong time to be trying to push the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty through.
DeMint asked some tough questions of administration witnesses, focusing on the fact that while the U.S. would follow the treaty if ratified, other nations would not. On the question of using the treaty to enforce international environmental accords, DeMint noted that Britain had been taken to court under the treaty for operating a nuclear plant on its own soil. The South Carolina senator also rebutted the claim, mentioned often at the hearing, that President Reagan had rejected the treaty only because of its seabed mining provisions. He read from the new book on Reagan's diaries in which the former president says he would not have signed the treaty even without those provisions.
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