Gaffney testifies against LOST

Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. appeared yesterday before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to voice opposition to U.S. accession to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

In his testimony, Mr. Gaffney described a number of what he called harmful “environmental impacts” that would be caused were the United States to become a state party to the Law of the Sea Treaty. Mr. Gaffney warned against the significant erosion in U.S. sovereignty that would attend U.S. endorsement of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – a supranational organization with unprecedented powers to regulate seven-tenths of the earth’s surface, levy taxes, govern ocean research and exploration, and create a multinational court to render and enforce its judgments. Powers granted to the ISA, furthermore, not only inhibit American sovereignty on the oceans, but threaten to establish ominous precedents for other non-territorial, areas including space.

Mr. Gaffney and Dr. Peter Leitner, a former member of the LOST negotiating delegation and published author on the subject, testified that the treaty appears to prohibit at-sea interdiction efforts necessary to stopping seaborne enviro-terrorists. At the very least, it is a troubling fact that Communist China has contended the LOST prohibits President Bush’s Proliferation Security Initiative – one of this country’s most important new tools in the effort to curb the further spread of weapons of mass destruction and WMD-related material.

In this regard, it was highly disconcerting that neither of the Bush Administration’s witnesses – Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Environment John Turner and State Department Legal Counsel William Taft IV – could provide an answer on the spot to Chairman James Inhofe’s opening question concerning what would happen if the United States wanted to board a ship in its Exclusive Economic Zone.

Messrs. Gaffney and Leitner also warned that the Treaty describes the collection of intelligence to be incompatible with its requirement that use of such waters be consistent with “peaceful intent.” Although the treaty was negotiated before 9/11, such prohibitions would be clearly injurious to America’s post-9/11 national security requirements in the War on Terror.

Finally, the treaty’s information and technology transfer provisions could be used by potential adversaries to obtain critical, militarily useful data and technologies.

Originally rejected by President Reagan in 1982, the Clinton Administration negotiated a subsequent agreement in 1994 that purported to allay U.S. concerns and allowing it to sign LOST. Messrs. Gaffney and Leitner raised questions about whether the Agreement had, in fact, formally modified the Treaty – one of many issues that they believe demand far more extensive hearings in and scrutiny by U.S. Senate before its members are asked to provide their advice and consent to the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Recognizing that the 1994 Agreement did little to change the substance of the treaty, the Senate had long-refused ratification. Interest groups and their allies on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have since consolidated their efforts to push for U.S. accession, and until recently appeared poised to succeed – in two previous hearings held by that committee opponents of LOST were prevented from testifying. Because of Gaffney’s efforts to bring the treaty’s defects to the attention of the Senate, however, LOST has begun to draw scrutiny. In addition to EPW’s hearing, the Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a hearing in which critics of LOST will again be heard.