Obama Gives U.S. Coastlines to the U.N.

Law Of the Sea Treaty L.O.S.T. by Rick Haven

The UN’s National Ocean Council now has control over America's oceans, coastlines and the Great Lakes.

The Law of the Sea Treaty is a culmination of many meetings held within the United Nations since 1973. L.O.S.T. replaces four 1958 treaties that govern the sovereign rights of a nation and how far those sovereign rights extend into the oceans of the world. It has been understood since the 17th century the territorial rights of any nation extended three miles from its shore, the range of a cannon ball fired from a ship at sea. Many nations recognized the mineral and fishing rights of a nation may be as much as twelve miles from its shore while other nations held those rights were as much as 200 miles. In 1945, President Truman extended those US rights to the edge of the continental shelf. By 1967, sixty-six nations contended that their sovereign territorial rights were now 12 miles and not the old standard of only three miles.

The Law of the Sea Treaty came into full force in 1994, with 179 countries signing the treaty. US representatives at the United Nations had signed the treaty in 1982, but due to pressure from then President Reagan, the treaty was not ratified by the US Senate. Jean Kirkpatrick, United Nations Ambassador during the Reagan administration testified before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee, “Its ratification will diminish our capacity for self-government, including and ultimately our capacity for self-defense.” As late as Dec. 2010 the United States was still one of 21 nations that had signed but not ratified L.O.S.T.

The push from those in the background to ratify this treaty has been puzzling. Perhaps the most interested for ratification is our military, in particular the US Navy. Under the “innocent passage” clause, naval ships would be permitted to operate within the 12 mile territorial limit of another nation, with certain provisions. All naval vessels could be permitted to maintain postures that would otherwise be illegal. Submarines are required to surface while passing within those waters and fly a flag. Our US Navy would be permitted to sail within a few miles of the coastline of a nation with which we may be diplomatically involved in a crisis, but spying or any other surveillance is however not permitted. For all those that believe that, there is a certain bridge I need to show you. To that end, submarines of other nations must also surface within our 12 mile territorial limit. Now we can look for those Russian subs off the coast of Jacksonville or sailing down the St. Johns.

So what could be so bad about a treaty that would allow us to coerce another nation with a display of naval might and yet make those pesky spy submarines along our east and west coasts surface so that we don’t have to look for them?

First, the treaty extends to all salt waters of the world. Here in Florida, the breaking line between salt and brackish water is the Main Street in Jacksonville. Other interesting locations; Jamestown Island in the James River of Virginia, 60 miles west of Norfolk, the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin of our Nation’s Capitol, and just how far up the Hudson River in New York. Included in this list will also be our Great Lakes and the several cities of Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland and Buffalo, not that we risk much if those cities were to become UN possessions.

Another reason for the United States to not ratify this treaty were that certain provisions of the treaty were not free-market friendly and were designed in favor of the economic systems of the Communist states. Some in our government felt that the provisions might result in revenues and insufficient control over how and for what the revenues might be used. Many in the United States Senate considered many of the provisions binding as customary international law. Since that time we have entered into several free trade agreements with other nations as well as the World Trade Organization, and many of those earlier concerns or road blocks to ratification have disappeared. The exploration for gas, oil and other minerals on the ocean floor have been of utmost concern.

The International Seabed Authority is an intergovernmental body based in Kingston, Jamaica. It was established to organize and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabeds underlying the world’s oceans. This is an autonomous organization having a relationship agreement with the United Nations. This body established a group called Enterprise which is to serve as the Authority’s own mining operator, authorizing them to explore and exploit specified areas on the seabed for mineral resources. The Authority was given a budget of 5.8 million a year and authorized to rise to as much as 6.3 million to support a staff of 35 people. Using the name Enterprise, it is interesting as it was also the name of the Federation starship sent to explore the galaxies in Star Trek. Could we have been brainwashed at such an early age?

Currently, eight contractors are doing exploration for the Authority and are; the Russian Federation, the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization composed of Bulgaria, Cuba, Slovakia and Czech Republic, the Republic of Korea, China, Japan, France, India and Germany. All of which are crew members on the Enterprise? Their activities have been restricted to looking for deposits of manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel which occur as potato sized lumps scattered on the ocean floor. The Authority has sole control over the issuance of such permits for mining and exploration and the authority to set fees and tax minerals that are mined. Furthermore, a mining operation must sustain the costs to explore for two such sites, deeding one over to the Authority as well as a mandatory transfer of technology. This authority extends into oil exploration as well. US oil companies be compelled to explore for an additional drilling site, if Congress should lift the ban on drilling. The American people will then be expected to suffer these additional costs plus the tax on the newly discovered oil at the gas pump, adding to the pockets of some international bureaucrat, even if those drilling sites are within our 12 mile territorial limits. As Americans we sit back and allow these costs leveraged against the oil companies and then complain about oil profits.

The provisions of the Law of the Sea Treaty are an invasion of our sovereign rights as a nation, and give away our right to control those waters surrounding our country, to our very seashores and how far those limits extend into the several areas previously mentioned. In the future, before engaging an enemy with an F-16 fighter from the deck of an aircraft carrier or firing a missile from a submarine, we must also check with some UN authority before that order is given.

In May of 2007, President Bush announced that he had urged the Senate to approve the Law of the Sea Treaty. In October of 2007, those US Senators who also hold membership in the Council on Foreign Relations voted 17 to 4, recommending ratification of L.O.S.T. A vote of the full senate was expected during the 111th Congress in January 2009. However, a group of Republican Senators led by James Inhofe of Oklahoma had blocked the US ratification of L.O.S.T., claiming that it does indeed impinge on US sovereignty. A majority of the United States Senate, including John McCain and the Pentagon had favored ratification. In addition, various special interests including scientific and international legal scholars, mining and environmental groups also pushed for the ratification.

Unable to get passage of this treaty in the 112th Congress, Barack Obama has mandated the treaty with Executive Order #13574 on July 19, 2011. The thirty days for the US Senate Judiciary Committee and Chairman Comrade Patrick Leahy to question this executive order has now passed while we were worried about the effects of Hurricane Irene. The UN’s National Ocean Council now has control over America's oceans, coastlines and the Great Lakes. Under this new council, America's oceans and coastlines will be broken into 9 regions that include the North East, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, the Gulf Coast, West Coast, the Great Lakes, Alaska, the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii) and the Caribbean....

The coastlines of some thirty states are now under the jurisdiction and subject to the United Nations' Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST) in this UN Agenda 21 program.

The cost to American taxpayers for the Law of the Sea Treaty is now estimated at $900 billion. Only when the American people can control the system of taxation, as with the Fair Tax, and thereby the monies going into Washington, DC, will treaties such as these become a moot point. Neither the United Nations nor any other international organization has any means to tax the American people for their international programs. Only when the United Nations, knowing full well that the United States Congress no longer has a blank check from the American people, will these programs evolve. Until that time we can surely count our Freedoms and Liberties as L.O.S.T.

Rick Haven