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THE LAW OF THE SEA
Almost Swimming in Support
It is that rare animal in Washington these days: a treaty that draws equal measures of support from Republicans and Democrats, from the White House and Congress, from environmentalists and business groups.
The Law of the Sea Treaty, which passed a key Senate committee today, would establish new, international rules for use of the world's oceans.
Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.) has called it a "vital international agreement." Business organizations want the treaty as a guarantee of passage through northern oceans as the ice there melts. Ocean Conservancy President Vikki Spruill said the law had earned the nickname "constitution for the oceans" because it "imposes basic obligations for all countries to protect and preserve the marine environment. President Bush said in May: "I urge the Senate to act favorably on U.S. accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea during this session of Congress."
But to listen to Republican presidential candidates, the Law of the Sea treaty -- shortened to LOST -- will establish a scary, unaccountable, shady international government bureaucracy that will strip Americans of their freedoms.
It is, in short, this year's New World Order whipping boy for the right.
"Are we in favor of increasing the power and authority of the United Nations and its subsidiaries at the expense of American sovereignty and vital interests?" former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee asked in a recent statement. "Or are we opposed to world government, particularly the one envisioned by LOST, charged with implementing a hopelessly outdated and counterproductive socialist and redistributionist agenda from the 1970s?"
No soft-pedaling there.
His rivals are equally anti-LOST. Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.) said the treaty gives "far too much authority" to the United Nations. A spokesman for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said he opposes the empowering of "unaccountable international institutions."
And former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani called the treaty "fundamentally flawed" and said he can't support "the creation of yet another unaccountable international bureaucracy."
The position of the GOP candidates puts them squarely in the camp of conservative activists, especially online, who have spent years warning of a conspiracy to enact the global treaty.
In a recent online column, conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly urged against ratifying "any more U.N. treaties that put U.S. law in the noose of foreign tribunals."
