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Could you please tell me that date
of this statement.
Jill
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2000 2:15
PM
Subject: [CTRL] US Role in UN - HON. RON
PAUL
-Caveat Lector-
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Peace at any cost is a
Prelude to War!
Statement of
HON. RON PAUL
OF TEXAS
[Page: H7697]
Mr. Speaker, over a half a century has transpired since the
United States of
America became a member of the United Nations. Purporting
to act pursuant to
the treaty powers of the Constitution, the President of
the United States
signed, and the United States Senate ratified, the
charter of the United
Nations. Yet, the debate in government circles over
the United Nations'
charter
scarcely has touched on the question of the
constitutional power of the United
States to enter such an agreement.
Instead, the only questions addressed
concerned the respective roles that
the President and Congress would assume
upon the implementation of that
charter.
On the one hand, some proposed that once the charter of the
United States was
ratified, the President of the United States would act
independently of
Congress pursuant to his executive prerogatives to conduct
the foreign affairs
of the Nation. Others insisted, however, that the
Congress played a major role
of defining foreign policy, especially because
that policy implicated the
power
to declare war, a subject reserved
strictly to Congress by Article I, Section
8
of the U.S.
Constitution.
At first, it appeared that Congress would take control of
America's
participation in the United Nations. But in the enactment of the
United
Nations' participation act on December 20, 1945, Congress laid down
several
rules by which America's participation would be governed. Among
those rules
was
the requirement that before the President of the United
States could deploy
United States Armed Forces in service of the United
Nations, he was required
to
submit to Congress for its specific approval
the numbers and types of Armed
Forces, their degree of readiness and
general location, and the nature of the
facilities and assistance including
rights of passage to be made available to
the United Nations Security
Council on its call for the purpose of maintaining
international peace and
security.
Since the passage of the United Nations Participation Act,
however,
congressional control of presidential foreign policy initiatives,
in
cooperation with the United Nations, has been more theoretical than
real.
Presidents from Truman to the current President have again and again
presented
Congress with already-begun military actions, thus forcing
Congress's hand to
support United States troops or risk the accusation of
having put the Nation's
servicemen and service women in unnecessary danger.
Instead of seeking
congressional approval of the use of the United States
Armed Forces in service
of the United Nations, presidents from Truman to
Clinton have used the United
Nations Security Council as a substitute for
congressional authorization of
the
deployment of United States Armed
Forces in that service.
This transfer of power from Congress to the
United Nations has not, however,
been limited to the power to make war.
Increasingly, Presidents are using the
U.N. not only to implement foreign
policy in pursuit of international peace,
but also domestic policy in
pursuit of international, environmental, economic,
education, social
welfare and human rights policy, both in derogation of the
legislative
prerogatives of Congress and of the 50 State legislatures, and
further in
derogation of the rights of the American people to constitute their
own
civil order.
As Cornell University government professor Jeremy Rabkin
has observed,
although
the U.N. charter specifies that none of its
provisions `shall authorize the
United Nations to intervene in matters
which are essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of any State,'
nothing has ever been found so
`essentially domestic' as to exclude U.N.
intrusions.
The release in July 2000 of the U.N. Human Development
Report provides
unmistakable evidence of the universality of the United
Nations'
jurisdictional
claims. Boldly proclaiming that global
integration is eroding national
borders,
the report calls for the
implementation and, if necessary, the imposition of
global standards of
economic and social justice by international agencies and
tribunals. In a
special contribution endorsing this call for the globalization
of domestic
policymaking, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote,
`Above
all, we have committed ourselves to the idea that no individual shall
have
his or her human rights abused or ignored. The idea is enshrined in
the
charter of the United Nations. The United Nations' achievements in the
area of
human rights over the last 50 years are rooted in the universal
acceptance of
those rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of
Rights. Emerging
slowly, but I believe, surely, is an international norm,'
and this is Annan's
words, `that must and will take precedence over
concerns of State
sovereignty.'
Although such a wholesale transfer
of United States sovereignty to the United
Nations as envisioned by
Secretary General Annan has not yet come to pass, it
will, unless Congress
takes action.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1146, the American Sovereignty
Restoration Act is my answer
to this problem. To date, Congress has
attempted to curb the abuse of power of
the United Nations by urging the
United Nations to reform itself, threatening
the nonpayment of assessments
and dues allegedly owed by the United States and
thereby cutting off the
United Nations' major source of funds. America's
problems with the United
Nations will not, however, be solved by such reform
measures. The threat
posed by the United Nations to the sovereignty of the
United States and
independence is not that the United Nations is currently
plagued by a
bloated and irresponsible international bureaucracy. Rather, the
threat
arises from the United Nation's Charter which--from the
beginning--was
a
threat to sovereignty protections in the U.S.
Constitution. The American
people
have not, however, approved of the
Charter of the United Nations which, by its
nature, cannot be the supreme
law of the land for it was never `made under the
Authority of the U.S.,' as
required by Article VI. H.R. 1146--The American
Sovereignty Restoration Act
of 1999 is my solution to the continued abuses of
the United Nations. The
U.S. Congress can remedy its earlier unconstitutional
action of embracing
the Charter of the United Nations by enacting H.R. 1146.
The U.S. Congress,
by passing H.R. 1146, and the U.S. president, by signing
H.R. 1146, will
heed the wise counsel of our first president, George
Washington, when he
advised his countrymen to `steer clear of permanent
alliances with any
portion of the foreign world,' lest the nation's security
and liberties be
compromised by endless and overriding international
commitments.
An
excerpt from Herbert W. Titus' Constitutional Analysis of the
United
Nations
In considering the recent United Nations meetings and
the United States'
relation to that organization and its affront to U.S.
sovereignty, we would
all
do well to read carefully Professor Herbert W.
Titus' paper on the United
Nations of which I have provided this
excerpt:
It is commonly assumed that the Charter of the United Nations
is a treaty. It
is not. Instead, the Charter of the United Nations is a
constitution. As such,
it is illegitimate, having created a supranational
government, deriving its
powers not from the consent of the governed (the
people of the United States
of
America and peoples of other member
nations) but from the consent of the
peoples' government officials who have
no authority to bind either the
American
people nor any other nation's
people to any terms of the Charter of the United
Nations.
By
definition, a treaty is a contract between or among independent
and
sovereign nations, obligatory on the signatories only when made by
competent
governing authorities in accordance with the powers
constitutionally conferred
upon them. I Kent, Commentaries on American Law
163 (1826); Burdick, The Law
of
the American Constitution section 34
(1922) Even the United Nations Treaty
Collection states that a treaty is
(1) a binding instrument creating legal
rights and duties (2) concluded by
states or international organizations with
treaty-making power (3) governed
by international law.
By contrast, a charter is a constitution creating
a civil government for a
unified nation or nations and establishing the
authority of that government.
Although the United Nations Treaty Collection
defines a `charter' as a
`constituent treaty,' leading international
political authorities state that
`[t]he use of the word `Charter' [in
reference to the founding document of the
United Nations] . . . emphasizes
the constitutional nature of this
instrument.'
Thus, the preamble to
the Charter of the United Nations declares `that the
Peoples of the United
Nations have resolved to combine their efforts to
accomplish certain aims
by certain means.' The Charter of the United Nations:
A
Commentary 46
(B. Simma, ed.) (Oxford Univ. Press, NY: 1995) (Hereinafter U.N.
Charter
Commentary). Consistent with this view, leading international
legal
authorities declare that the law of the Charter of the United Nations
which
governs the authority of the United Nations General Assembly and the
United
Nations Security Council is `similar . . . to national
constitutional law,'
proclaiming that `because of its status as a
constitution for the world
community,' the Charter of the United Nations
must be construed broadly,
making
way for `implied powers' to carry out
the United Nations' `comprehensive scope
of duties, especially the
maintenance of international peace and security and
its orientation towards
international public welfare.' Id. at 27
The United Nations Treaty
Collection confirms the appropriateness of this
`constitutional
interpretive' approach to the Charter of the United Nations
with its
statement that the charter may be traced `back to the Magna
Carta
(the
Great Charter) of 1215,' a national constitutional document.
As a
constitutional document, the Magna Carta not only bound the
original
signatories, the English barons and the king, but all subsequent
English
rulers, including Parliament, conferring upon all Englishmen
certain rights
that five hundred years later were claimed and exercised by
the English people
who had colonized America.
A charter, then, is a
covenant of the people and the civil rulers of a nation
in perpetuity.
Sources of Our Liberties 1-10 (R. Perry, ed.) (American Bar
Foundation:
1978) As Article 1 of Magna Carta, puts it:
We have granted moreover to
all free men of our kingdom for us and our heirs
forever all liberties
written below, to be had and holden by themselves and
their heirs from us
and our heirs.
In like manner, the Charter of the United Nations is
considered to be a
permanent `constitution for the universal society,' and
consequently, to be
construed in accordance with its broad and unchanging
ends but in such a way
as
to meet changing times and changing relations
among the nations and peoples of
the world. U.N. Charter Commentary at
28-44.
According to the American political and legal tradition and the
universal
principles of constitution making, a perpetual civil covenant or
constitution,
obligatory on the people and their rulers throughout the
generations, must,
first, be proposed in the name of the people and,
thereafter, ratified by the
people's representatives elected and assembled
for the sole purpose of passing
on the terms of a proposed covenant. See 4
The Founders' Constitution 647-58
(P. Kurland and R. Lerner, eds.) (Univ.
Chicago. Press: 1985). Thus, the
preamble of the Constitution of the United
States of America begins with `We
the People of the United States' and
Article VII provides for ratification by
state conventions composed of
representatives of the people elected solely for
that purpose. Sources of
Our Liberties 408, 416, 418-21 (R. Perry, ed.) (ABA
Foundation, Chicago:
1978)
Taking advantage of the universal appeal of the American
constitutional
tradition, the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations
opens with `We
the
peoples of the United Nations.' But, unlike the
Constitution of the United
States of America, the Charter of the United
Nations does not call for
ratification by conventions of the elected
representatives of the people of
the
signatory nations. Rather, Article
110 of the Charter of the United Nations
provides for ratification `by the
signatory states in accordance with their
respective constitutional
processes.' Such a ratification process would have
been politically and
legally appropriate if the charter were
a mere treaty. But the Charter of
the United Nations is not a treaty; it is a
constitution.
First of
all, Charter of the United Nations, executed as an agreement in the
name of
the people, legally and politically displaced previously binding
agreements
upon the signatory nations. Article 103 provides that `[i]n the
event of a
conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United
Nations under
the present Charter and their obligations under any other
international
agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall
prevail.'
Because the 1787 Constitution of the United States of America
would
displace the previously adopted Articles of Confederation under which
the
United States was being governed, the drafters recognized that only if
the
elected representatives of the people at a constitutional convention
ratified
the proposed constitution, could it be lawfully adopted as a
constitution.
Otherwise, the Constitution of the United States of America
would be, legally
and politically, a treaty which could be altered by any
state's legislature as
it saw fit. The Founders' Constitution, supra, at
648-52.
Second, an agreement made in the name of the people creates a
perpetual union,
subject to dissolution only upon proof of breach of
covenant by the governing
authorities whereupon the people are entitled to
reconstitute a new government
on such terms and for such duration as the
people see fit. By contrast, an
agreement made in the name of nations
creates only a contractual obligation,
subject to change when any signatory
nation decides that the obligation is no
longer advantageous or suitable.
Thus, a treaty may be altered by valid
statute
enacted by a signatory
nation, but a constitution may be altered only by a
special amendatory
process provided for in that document. Id. at 652.
Article V of the
Constitution of the United States of America spells out that
amendment
process, providing two methods for adopting constitutional changes,
neither
of which requires unanimous consent of the states of the Union.
Had
the
Constitution of the United States of America been a treaty, such
unanimous
consent would have been required. Similarly, the Charter of the
United Nations
may be amended without the unanimous consent of its member
states. According
to
Article 108 of the Charter of the United Nations,
amendments may be proposed
by
a vote of two-thirds of the United Nations
General Assembly and may become
effective upon ratification by a vote of
two-thirds of the members of the
United Nations, including all the
permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council. According to
Article 109 of the Charter of the United
Nations, a special conference of
members of the United Nations may be called
`for the purpose of reviewing
the present Charter' and any changes proposed by
the conference may `take
effect when ratified by two-thirds of the Members of
the United Nations
including all the permanent members of the Security
Council.' Once an
amendment to the Charter of the United Nations is adopted
then that
amendment `shall come into force for all Members of the United
Nations,'
even those nations who did not ratify the amendment, just as an
amendment
to the Constitution of the United States of America is effective in
all of
the states, even though the legislature of a state or a convention of
a
state refused to ratify. Such an amendment process is totally foreign to
a
treaty. See Id., at 575-84.
Third, the authority to enter into an
agreement made in the name of the people
cannot be politically or legally
limited by any preexisting constitution,
treaty, alliance, or instructions.
An agreement made in the name of a nation,
however, may not contradict the
authority granted to the governing powers and,
thus, is so limited. For
example, the people ratified the Constitution of the
United States of
America notwithstanding the fact that the constitutional
proposal had been
made in disregard to specific instructions to amend the
Articles of
Confederation, not to displace them.
See Sources of Our Liberties
399-403 (R. Perry ed.) (American Bar Foundation:
1972). As George Mason
observed at the Constitutional Convention in 1787,
`Legislatures have no
power to ratify' a plan changing the form of government,
only `the people'
have such power. 4 The Founders' Constitution, supra, at
651.
As a
direct consequence of this original power of the people to constitute a
new
government, the Congress under the new constitution was authorized
to
admit
new states to join the original 13 states without submitting
the admission of
each state to the 13 original states. In like manner, the
Charter of the
United
Nations, forged in the name of the `peoples' of
those nations, established a
new international government with independent
powers to admit to membership
whichever nations the United Nations
governing authorities chose without
submitting such admissions to each
individual member nation for ratification.
See Charter of the United
Nations, Article 4, Section 2. No treaty could
legitimately confer upon the
United Nations General Assembly such powers and
remain within the legal and
political definition of a treaty.
By invoking the name of the `peoples
of the United Nations,' then, the Charter
of the United Nations envisioned
a new constitution creating a new civil order
capable of not only imposing
obligations upon the subscribing nations, but
also
imposing obligations
directly upon the peoples of those nations. In his
special
contribution
to the United Nations Human Development Report 2000, United
Nations
Secretary-General Annan made this claim crystal clear:
Even though we
are an organization of Member States, the rights and ideals the
United
Nations exists to protect are those of the peoples. No government has
the
right to hide behind national sovereignty in order to violate the
human
rights or fundamental freedoms of its peoples. Human Development
Report 2000
31
(July 2000) [Emphasis added.]
While no previous
United Nations' secretary general has been so bold, Annan's
proclamation of
universal jurisdiction over `human rights and fundamental
freedoms' simply
reflects the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations
which
contemplated a future in which the United Nations operates in
perpetuity
`to save succeeding generations from the scourge of ware . . .
to reaffirm
faith in fundamental human rights . . . to establish conditions
under which
justice . . . can be maintained, and to promote social progress
and between
standards of life in larger freedom.' Such lofty goals and
objectives are
comparable to those found in the preamble to the
Constitution of the United
States of America: `to . . . establish Justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare and secure the
Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity . . .'
There is, however, one difference that must not be
overlooked. The
Constitution
of the United States of America is a
legitimate constitution, having been
submitted directly to the people for
ratification by their representatives
elected and assembled solely for the
purpose of passing on the terms of that
document. The Charter of the United
Nations, on the other hand, is an
illegitimate constitution, having only
been submitted to the Untied States
Senate for ratification as a treaty.
Thus, the Charter of the United Nations,
not being a treaty, cannot be made
the supreme law of our land by compliance
with Article II, Section 2 of
Constitution of the United States of America.
Therefore, the Charter of the
United Nations is neither politically nor
legally
binding upon the
United States of America or upon its people.
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A
vote for Bush or Gore is a vote to continue Clinton policies!
A vote for
Buchanan is a vote to continue America!
Therefore a vote for Gore or Bush
is a wasted vote for America!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick
Buchanan!
Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted
two-party system is a
snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our
two parties have become
nothing but two wings of the same bird of
prey...
Patrick Buchanan
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