Indeed, Cato stresses that the arguments of the oil companies make it “all the more important that the United States refuse to ratify the [Law of the Sea Treaty]. Once Washington has done so, a future renunciation of the LOST might not be considered enough to reestablish Americans’ traditional freedom on the high seas.”27
Backers of the treaty see the agreement as a fait accompli since more than the necessary sixty nations have already ratified it, putting it into effect (according to its own terms). But, as Cato notes, “nations cannot be held to surrender their rights because other states have ratified a treaty. Put bluntly, it matters little whether or not Djibouti, Fiji, or Zambia approves of American mining consortia operating in the Pacific.”28
SHACKLING THE US NAVY
The Law of the Sea Treaty has other horrific implications. Essentially, it makes the entire seabed and the waters above it the sovereign property of the United Nations and disempowers the US Navy.
Ever since the United States won the Cold War and acquired unquestioned global military superiority, the other nations of the world have sought to rein in American force. Two treaties represent their most audacious effort to stop the United States from exercising its military sway throughout the world.
The Law of the Sea Treaty gives the International Seabed Authority (ISA) the right to adjudicate disputes over the seas, deciding who can sail where and drill where on the seabed. Currently, the US Navy, as a practical matter, makes these determinations since no one can challenge its power. But prevailing anti-American sentiment throughout the world is leading other nations to try to reduce its power.
The second effort to restrain our military power is through the International Criminal Court. It would ban any American president—on possible penalty of criminal prosecution before the court—from going to war without the approval of the UN Security Council, a body hobbled by the Russian and Chinese veto power. The treaty would, in effect, require the approval of Moscow and Beijing before our armed forces could be committed to combat. (See more on the ICC in Part Six.)
The right of open seas and freedom of navigation is maintained for all nations by the unrivaled and unequaled power of the US Navy, which, after Great Britain found its resources too limited to afford a large navy, has protected open seas for almost a hundred years.
But, now, in an era of defense spending cuts, some urge that the US Navy pull back from its historic mission and turn the protection of free navigation over to the International Seabed Authority.
Disputes that were once adjudicated by the US Navy will now go before international arbitrators meeting in Hamburg, Germany, appointed by the ISA—and almost certainly hostile to American interests. The arbitrators, whose decisions are binding on signatory nations, are chosen by the parties to the dispute, each getting the right to name one or two of the five judges. In the event that a fifth judge satisfactory to the contending nations could not be negotiated, the power to appoint the judges would fall on the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, whose tenure has been noted for its corruption, anti-Americanism, and overt advocacy of the transfer of resources to the third world. Good luck getting a fair trial out of him!
Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation asks the key question: “Why risk sacrificing US sovereignty under the treaty if it makes us no more secure? After all, what initially established and still ensures freedom of navigation under international law is naval power. To secure navigational freedom, territorial rights and all national and international interests addressed in LOST, we must maintain the strength of the US Navy, not look to an anachronistic pact that is intent on advancing a one-world agenda.”29
The treaty itself has been kicking around for years. Negotiated by the misguided globalists of the Carter administration, the drive for US participation was only temporarily halted after Reagan refused to sign on in 1982.
President Clinton signed the treaty Reagan had rejected, after it was renegotiated in 1994. The changed treaty was hailed as solving all the objections Reagan had raised and Clinton called for prompt Senate ratification. But a careful examination of these changes revealed that they were largely cosmetic, fudging some issues and avoiding others. Those who had opposed the treaty are largely still opposed. Conservative objections to the revised document were so strong that the Republican majority on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee refused to report the treaty to the floor of the Senate in the 1990s.
Now, in the current drive for ratification, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mocked those who raised legitimate questions about the treaty in her Senate testimony, saying that the arguments against the treaty “cannot even be taken with a straight face.” She said the opposition to the treaty was “based in ideology and mythology, not in facts, evidence, or the consequences of our continuing failure to accede to the treaty.”30
As noted, the secretary of state dismissed concerns over the treaty, noting that if the US signed it or any UN treaty, “[o]f course, that means the black helicopters are on their way,”31 a reference to conspiracy theories about a world government and a quote that inspired the title of this book. Thank you, Hillary!
One of the changes made in 1994 excluded military vessels from the regulation of the International Seabed Authority. But Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) notes that while
proponents say the treaty exempts military activity from international litigation, those of us opposing it are deeply concerned because this terribly flawed document fails to define what is included in that exemption. In addition, it opens the US military to the jurisdiction of international courts and governing bodies.
The Senator noted that “military training exercises that do not have the approval of other nations could be prevented because of potentially negative environmental impacts. US military vessels could be stopped on the grounds that they are too heavy a polluter.32
Currently, the US Navy is subject to the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, now called the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO sets maritime laws to improve safety at sea, facilitate trade, and protect the marine environment. The Law of the Sea Treaty would supersede the IMO. The IMO already gives the US a free hand to pursue commerce and military operations around the globe. So why hamper and hinder our own Navy and subject us to the jurisdiction of the Seabed Authority?
CAN THE TREATY STOP CHINA AND RUSSIA FROM THEIR TERRITORIAL CLAIMS?
Defenders of the Law of the Sea Treaty say that it is necessary to resolve two regional problems: China’s attempt to assert control over the South China Sea and Russia’s efforts to claim sovereignty over the Arctic ice shelf, where the warming global climate may make oil drilling more technically feasible in the future.
China is a signatory to the Law of the Sea Treaty but, nevertheless, it is ignoring one of its key provisions—the offshore exclusive economic zone. The treaty gives each country bordering the ocean a zone of two hundred miles off its coast in which it can drill for oil or engage in any economic activity. Even though the treaty bars other nations from economic activity—such as oil drilling—within another country’s two-hundred-mile zone, China is claiming that it can drill anywhere in the South China Sea, even right off the Vietnam coast.
In June 2012, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation announced that it was “offering a new batch of oil-exploration blocks inside the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone granted to Vietnam under the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty.”33