By a vote of 17-4 today, a Senate Panel approved to move forward to bring this to the full Senate. The Law of the Sea Treaty is a dangerous grab at American sovereignty and its U.S. ratification needs to be stopped.

This was first proposed during the Reagan Administration and he objected to it for three very good reasons:

• Former President Reagan’s first objection to the Treaty was the Principle of the “Common Heritage of Mankind,” which dictates that oceanic resources should be shared among all mankind and cannot be claimed by any one nation or people. In order to achieve this goal, the Treaty creates the International Seabed Authority (”Authority”) to regulate and exploit mineral resources. It requires a company to submit an application fee of $500,000 (now $250,000), as well as a bonus site for the Authority to utilize for its own mining efforts. Additionally, the corporation must pay an annual fee of $1 million, as well as a percentage of its profits (increasing annually up to 7%), and must agree to share mining and navigational technology–thereby ensuring that opportunities aren’t restricted to more technologically advanced countries. The decision to grant or to withhold mining permits is decided by the Authority, which consists disproportionately of underdeveloped countries. Technology-sharing is no longer mandatory, however, there are remaining “principles” to guide its use and distribution. Additionally, the Council has been restructured so that the United States has a permanent seat, and developed countries can create a blocking vote.
• Secondly, former President Reagan believed that the Treaty would restrict the world’s supply of minerals. The Treaty was originally designed to limit the exploitation of heavy minerals in order to protect the mineral sales of land-locked, developing nations. This is no longer a severe limitation, because production limits to preserve land-based mining have been removed.
• The third–and still valid–objection is that mandatory dispute resolution restricts autonomy. Either a U.N. court or tribunal must mandate maritime issues involving fisheries, marine environmental protection, and preservation, research, and navigation. A country may opt out if the dispute involves maritime boundaries, military, or limited law enforcement activities. Submitting to external jurisdiction creates an uncomfortable precedent. Furthermore, it weakens the U.S. argument of autonomy when it refuses to submit to the International Criminal Court. Additionally, a country must petition to be excluded from mandatory jurisdiction requirements.
• The Heritage Foundation
  

The Democrats (as well as idiots like Dick Lugar) are behind this, of course, because they’ll get behind anything that weakens America’s standing in the world.  Trent Lott and John Kyl seems fairly certain that there won’t be enough affirmative votes in the Senate to ratify it.  For a treaty, two-thirds is required. Bush is also pushing this to be signed. As usual, he doesn’t pass up a chance to sell out our sovereignty.