LOST at sea in Senate

William Clark and Edwin Meese:

It is an impressive testament to the abiding affection and political influence of former President Ronald Reagan that the fate of a controversial treaty now before the U.S. Senate may ultimately turn on a single question: What would Reagan do?

As we had the privilege of working closely with President Reagan in connection with the foreign policy, national security and domestic implications of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST), there is no question about how our 40th president felt about this accord. He so strongly opposed it that he formally refused to sign the treaty. He even sent Donald Rumsfeld as a personal emissary to our key allies around the world to explain his opposition and encourage them to follow suit. All of them did so at the time.

Proponents of LOST, however, have lately taken--on these pages and elsewhere--to portray President Reagan's concerns as relatively circumscribed. They contend that those objections were subsequently and satisfactorily addressed in a multilateral accord known as the Agreement of 1994. To the extent that such assertions may induce senators who would otherwise oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty to vote for it, perhaps within a matter of weeks and after only the most cursory of reviews, we feel compelled to set the record straight.

Ronald Reagan actually opposed LOST even before he came to office. He was troubled by a treaty that had, in the course of its protracted negotiations, mutated beyond recognition from an effort to codify certain navigation rights strongly supported by our Navy into a dramatic step toward world government. This supranational agenda was most closely identified with, but not limited to, the Treaty's Part XI, which created a variety of executive, legislative and judicial mechanisms to control the resources of the world's oceans.

In a radio address titled "Ocean Mining" on Oct. 10, 1978, Mr. Reagan applauded the idea that "no nat[ional] interest of ours could justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the earth's surface over to the Third World." He added, "No one has ruled out the idea of a [Law of the Sea] treaty--one which makes sense--but after long years of fruitless negotiating, it became apparent that the underdeveloped nations who now control the General Assembly were looking for a free ride at our expense--again."

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This thing has been around along time. I actually had to study the proposed treaty in law school almost 40 years ago. It still has the same problem as pointed out by the last paragraph. It is a vehicle for countries who do not have the resources or the ability to exploit mining of the seas beyond territorial waters to extract a royalty payment from those who can. In other words, it is a give away to the weak and incompetent of the world. The supposed payment to countries like the US is the exclusive rights to certain areas of the ocean bottom too. But under current law, we have that by virtue of our ability to exploit that area and defend ourselves.

It is unlikely that one percent of the people in this country are aware of the issues in this treaty so the issue will probably be decided by sixty or so guys in the Senate who will be listening to those who want to give away royalties to the undeserving and those who do not.