Bureaucrats Managing Our Seas

In the Review and Outlook section of the Wall Street Journal of June 2 there is an editorial about Bush's desire for the US to ratify "The Law of the Sea Treaty". (Read)

"Launched by the United Nations in 1982, the Law of the Sea Treaty creates a new global bureaucracy to manage the ocean and its resources, with disputes settled by a new global court. Twenty-five years later, with Oil for Food and other U.N. follies behind us, the prospect of handing management of two-thirds of the Earth's surface over to another unaccountable international body is, if anything, even less attractive."

"....It is not in the national interest of the U.S. to have its maritime or economic power subject to the whims of a highly politicized U.N. bureaucracy often driven by an anti-American agenda. Nor is it in its interest to be a party to another treaty that other signatories might flout with impunity. Unlike some nations -- think Iran or North Korea and the IAEA or the Nonproliferation Treaty -- the U.S. takes its treaty obligations seriously."

...it "could also get in the way of fighting the war on terror, for which the U.S. needs maximum flexibility." The article goes on to remind us how this issue could be used by the Animal-rights activists who "already object to underwater sonar as injurious to whales or dolphins and would be only too happy to have another legal tool at their disposal."

Although about 152 nations are signatories to the Law of the Sea Treaty, the U.S. should NOT sign this treaty as it would tie its hands in many situations where maximum flexibility and autonomy would be crucial. The real question is why would anyone want bureaucrats managing our seas? Don't we have enough history with corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats?