- Executive Order 13107, which, barring a congressional
override this week will become the law of the land, is a perfect example
of how global governance is overtaking self-governance in the United States.
- Despite the rejection by the U.S. Senate of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child, and the refusal of the Senate to even consider
many of the other 81 U.N. Human Rights Treaties, the president has laid
the foundation through this EO to implement the objectives of those treaties.
The will of the U.N. is being implemented voluntarily by the Clinton/Gore
administration. The process was not initiated by this administration; George
Bush, with his Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K.
Reilly, was eager to usher in the "New World Order."
- Nor is the process limited to Human Rights Treaties.
This administration is actively implementing the unratified Convention
on Biological Diversity, the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention
on Climate Change, and the policies of Agenda 21. With the implementation
of each of these UN policies, another piece of America's national sovereignty
- Defenders of these policies say "so what, these
are good policies that should be implemented." Not all Americans agree,
and therein lies the great danger to America. The U.S. Constitution provides
a mechanism for grinding the differences of opinion out of public policy
through public debate, and questions are resolved by the public, accountable
votes of elected officials. When public policies are adopted by elected
officials which differ from the will of the people, the people can change
their elected officials and thereby change the public policy. When public
policies originate in Geneva, Rio de Janeiro, or Kyoto, and are implemented
by executive order and administrative decree, those who dissent, or who
may have a better idea, are silenced. Policies are imposed upon the people
who neither give their consent, nor have recourse to change those policies.
- The process is bad enough, in that it bypasses the fundamental
process prescribed by the U.S. Constitution. But even worse is the underlying
philosophy of governance upon which U.N. policies are based. Consent of
the governed is the empowering principle of American government; control
of the governed is the empowering principle of global governance.
- The Kyoto Protocol exemplifies this principle: to achieve
its objective, the UN document would allow the UN to control the use of
energy in rich nations in order to force industry to move to poor nations
that have no controls on energy use. The International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights seeks to "create the conditions" to grant
"freedom from want" to those who want. The only way to achieve
that result is to "take"from those who have, and "give"
to those who have not Control of people is the essential ingredient in
the implementation of virtually all U.N. policies because the underlying
philosophy demands it.
- By contrast, the philosophy that underlies the U.S. Constitution
is the belief that people who are free to pursue their own survival and
prosperity will create the interpersonal and business relationships necessary
to achieve their own objectives. In 200 years, this philosophy has demonstrated
its validity by producing national prosperity unmatched by nations that
have existed for thousands of years.
- Proponents of global governance deny a desire to control
people. In fact, they claim their objective is to ensure a greater degree
of freedom and prosperity to those who are now denied even basic freedoms
and live in crushing poverty. That, they say, is the purpose, hope, and
objective of the 81 Human Rights Treaties. What they fail to recognize,
or admit, is the fact that neither freedom, nor prosperity, is a commodity
that any government can give; they can only be limited, restricted, or
denied by government. Any attempt by any government to expand either the
freedom or prosperity of some, necessarily requires that the freedom and
prosperity of others be limited, restricted, or denied.
- The American experiment in self governance is just over
200 years old. It has been incredibly successful -- so far -- a beacon
of hope to the world. The only hope of the developing world to escape the
cycle of impoverished servitude is to follow America's example of casting
off governmental constraints and allowing free people to use the resources
provided by their creator to pursue their own survival and prosperity.
- Executive Order 13107 diminishes the candlepower of America's
beacon of hope. What's worse, it allows the United Nations a larger measure
of control over the beacon. If the trend continues, even for another few
years, the United Nations will extinguish the light altogether, and America
will be stripped of its wealth in order to achieve "equity" in
the new "sustainable" millennium, by those who think
they know how everyone ought to behave.
- Henry Lamb is executive vice president of the Environmental
Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.