Once Again...Lose L.O.S.T.!

In previous posts on L.O.S.T. (10 all together), I pointed out how wrong as wrong can be the Law Of The Sea Treaty will be for the sovereignty of the United States. What the Leftinistra aren't telling anyone is this, among other examples...the United States Navy will have to seek permissions from the United Nations to operate. if anyone thinks this is a good thing for the defense of the United States, the Kucinich UFO has landed in their living room.

The "treaty" is also known as UNCLOS and that is short for United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea.

Matt Yglesias is so, so right about Friday Night Lights, my new favorite TV series (you needn't like football, high school, or Texas; I love only the third). So I am surprised he is not more skeptical about the Law of the Sea Treaty.

For background, here is Wikipedia, here is a Heritage critique, and here is a Cato critique. Here is an argument for the treaty. Here is another summary of arguments, and more details here. Note that many nations already have signed and ratified but the U.S. has not ratified.

In essence, the convention "guarantees" freedom of navigation (fine, noting that ocean navigation is currently free, but thanks mostly to the U.S. military, not the UN), defines territorial waters, and sets future guidelines for managing the sea's mineral resources (not so fine). The Convention "establishes an International Seabed Authority (ISA) to authorize seabed exploration and mining and collect and distribute the seabed mining royalty."

Economic mining of the deep ocean is decades away. But the ISA has veto rights over developing ocean resources and this hardly seems conducive to increasing the value of those resources. Nor does the "some regulatory framework is better than none, if only to alleviate uncertainty" argument apply. No entrepreneurs are sitting around waiting for the U.S. to ratify the convention so they can proceed with their deep sea mining platforms. there is a potential commons problem but right now it is best to simply wait; no current "solution" will end up sticking or much reflect the actual problems that will arise. [...]

Read the rest of the article from Marginal Revolution.

YIKES! Seeing that for the last few decades, the United Nations has been an utter failure in most respects, anything that organization is for, the United States MUST ignore or outright reject. Col North had these words of wisdom to orate upon...

[...] LOST also opens the door to a long-sought U.N. goal: the redistribution of wealth by taxing Americans. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a bloated, multi-national bureaucracy headquartered in Jamaica, has the mandate to distribute revenues and “other economic benefits” on the basis of “equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing States.” In addition to acting as a global IRS, the ISA also decides which companies from what nations will develop mineral resources on the seabed. [...]

Not enough for you? Check these sources before you click out.
Heritage Foundation
USA Survival
Washington Times
Text of Treaty in pdf format
Open Market
Eagle Forum
NCPA
Another pdf file
Ocean Law (self-explanatory title this one)

The best President this country has ever seen, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was very much opposed to the defunct UNCLOS.

[...] Among the specific concerns with LOST identified by President Reagan in 1982 were: (1) the lack of adequate American influence within the decision-making bodies of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), in charge of regulating deep seabed mining in the oceans; (2) limitations on exploitation of the deep seabed; (3) mandatory technology transfers to the ISA and developing countries; (4) the competitive advantage given to a supranational mining company affiliated with the ISA known as the “Enterprise”; (5) the imposition of financial burdens on deep seabed mining operations; and (6) the potential for the ISA to impose regulatory burdens on the American mining industry. [...]

Redstate chimes in here.

I must confess that I feel much better about my position concerning the Law of the Sea Treaty when I see that Tyler Cowen is, at best, very, very ambivalent about the whole thing. And I really wish that Professor Cowen was invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before the Committee voted the Treaty to the full Senate favorably. The Senators would have done well to hear this: [...]

[...] I don't hold the extreme view that the UN always fails. It is possibly good when there is a general consensus for action (UNESCO World Heritage sites), or when a well-targeted military action has a defined purpose. The UN is very bad at developing and enforcing open-ended commitments, and very bad at constructing well-run institutions.

Ain't that a mouthful?

Another reason to be against it is this...the New York Slimes is for it, namely, Weasel Gail Collins.

[...] I would love to give you all the arguments about the virtues of the Law of the Sea Treaty, but it seems like a cruel thing to do to readers on a Saturday. One problem with the debate is that the earnestness of the proponents is equaled only by their lack of pizazz. [...]

Yet another Leftinistric, The Atlantic.com is for it. I wonder why ALL the anti-Americanists are for this and have dragged GWB into being for a treaty that would dampen the very spirit of America?

Paul Weyrich at Townhall explains most of the opposition and The Why to oppose L.O.S.T..

Cliff Kincaid isn't giving up defeating the UN, either.

The American Policy Center:

[...] As you no doubt remember, this very dangerous treaty will seriously diminish our national sovereignty by transferring jurisdiction over the world's oceans and everything in them to United Nations agencies and bureaucrats. Yet I would remind you of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Black's admonition in Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), when he reminded us that our civil liberties cannot be subordinated by a treaty, by stating:

"It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights - let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition - to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. The court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty."

Yet today several U.S. Supreme Court justices are on record as using, and urging other justices to use, foreign law in deciding U.S. cases! [...]

If the Leftinistra want it; if the United Nations wants it; oppose it. It really is that simple.

Catch the wave