Bipartisan Crimes Against The Constitution
By Cliff Kincaid
March 4, 2008
Page 2 of 2
The Bush Administration's support for the unconstitutional Clinton approach could easily backfire on conservatives if the Democrats take the White House and hold Congress in the fall elections. Citing NAFTA as a precedent, liberal Democrats could submit and pass treaties by a simple majority vote.
In an article in the liberal American Prospect, Thomas Geoghegan lamented that the Kyoto global warming treaty and the International Criminal Court "are among the great global projects of our day" but are not getting through the Senate because of the two-thirds majority required for passage. "So what's the way out of this bind? It's the same way out we used for NAFTA or for fast-track free-trade agreements. That is, we just pass a simple law," he said.
Geoghegan says the reason liberals can't get these measures currently passed in the Senate is because this body "overrepresents" states like "Wyoming, Idaho and America's backwoods." In other words, Red State Senators have too much clout under the Constitution. They are obstructing the "progressive" vision.
Geoghegan says legal justification for this new approach can be found in an article in the American Journal of International Law by Steve Charnovitz, an associate professor of international law at the George Washington University School of Law. The article complains about Senate inaction on such treaties as the feminist Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the anti-parent U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on Biological Diversity, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and various U.N. human rights treaties.
Since this article appeared, in October of 2004, the Bush Administration has been trying to pressure the Senate into ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty. It now awaits full Senate action.
Charnovitz admits the approach of pushing these treaties as mere agreements would be controversial. But he finds comfort in the fact that the legal action against NAFTA was thrown out.
It would make a good issue for John McCain, except for the fact that he's for NAFTA and most of the U.N. treaty agenda.
--------
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.
--------------------
Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA. >> Back -- Page 1 2
++ Discuss this topic in The Forum
Current rating:  5.0 out of 5.0 (11 total votes)
| 
