There are many politicians, both Democrat and Republican, who constantly press for the US to ratify “The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” commonly referred to as LOST, an international agreement that was concluded in 1982, and came into force in 1994.
It is an insidious attempt to remove national sovereignty and for national waters to be subsumed under the control of the UN.
Not just the ocean surfaces, but the entire volume of the oceans and the sea bottoms. (Does this mean that they also assert control of mineral rights for what is beneath the sea bottoms? Does this extend to the center of the planet? Gee, why stop there? Assert control of the volume of air above the ocean surfaces.)
Ok, a few things:
1) How do you propose waters far away from shore be divided up?
2) There are limits in place regarding where international waters start. In fact, we’ve actually agreed to every provision of the 1994 agreement except Part XI that creates a procedure for deep sea mining revenues to be split. Despite our agreement with international waters, etc. you don’t see hostile ships sitting just of US shores
3) The slippery slope argument can be used almost anywhere to make almost anything look ridiculous. Despite that, we have to realize that every expansion of the treaty has to be passed in the UN and then ratified by the member nations. So if the world does indeed feel the center of the Earth should be controlled by the UN, the method for action is the same as it is now- a new treaty proposing that.
4) Even if your hypothetical worst-case scenario happened and it hurt US (or any nation’s) interests significantly, you have to remember one thing- the UN really doesn’t have any teeth, especially over major western powers. So the response to the worst case, slippery slope would be “ok, that’s nice you think that, now try and enforce it”
“the UN really doesn’t have any teeth”
It is desperately trying to grow some. That is what LOST is really about.
Been there; done that. In fact LOST asserts control of what goes into the atmosphere over land, too, if that atmosphere carries what the UN considers “pollutants” (like CO2). The fact that the UN has little in the way of enforcement teeth is not a problem for it since US judicial system is only too happy to lend a hand if the venue is chosen carefully.
Politicians push LOST because they are paid to. Money is as good as ‘teeth’.
Why is the UN interested in drafting such a treaty as LOST? That should be the questions because that is the worry. The UN has nothing to do, it has become obsolete and therein lies the danger.