Copenhagen Treaty: Will the U.S. cede sovereignty?

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/copenhagen-treaty-will-the-u-s-cede-sovereignty

We've received numerous requests to stop President Obama from signing a climate change treaty in Copenhagen this December. Many of these requests were inspired by a presentation given by Christopher Monckton at the Minnesota Free Market Institute on October 14.

Monckton says he has read the treaty, believes Obama is sure to sign it, and that it would cede the sovereignty of the U.S. to a world government. (For a video of his remarks on the treaty, go here. To see his full 95-minute presentation that challenges the global warming theory, go here.)

We have yet to see any kind of crisis successfully mitigated through greater coercion, centralization, and bureaucracy. Whether or not one agrees that there is man-made climate change, Monckton's allegations are pretty scary. Anthony Watts provides more scary stuff by providing extensive passages from the treaty.

But there's no need to panic . . .

• The treaty Monckton refers to is a "Framework Convention On Climate Change" or "revised negotiating text." That is, it's a proposal, not a finalized treaty. You can read it yourself here.
• The Financial Times reports that the United Nation's top climate official doesn't believe a treaty will be signed in Copenhagen. What is hoped for is a "political framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions" with details to be supplied later.
• As Pat Buchanan notes, scientific studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that global warming isn't happening. This is building doubt among the people and causing the climate-change lobby to change tactics.

The most important reason not to panic is that there's something more urgent than Copenhagen. It's the Cap & Trade bill which has passed the House and is before the Senate. As the Financial Times states,

[T]he White House will find it difficult to commit to specific [emissions] cuts before the Senate has considered the cap-and-trade bill now before it.

Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, is adamant that Mr Obama will not repeat the mistakes made over the Kyoto protocol, when the Clinton administration signed a deal that didn't have Congressional approval.

Buchanan concludes,

If, however, cap-and-trade, which the Congressional Budget Office says will be another blow to economic growth, can be stopped before the Copenhagen summit in December, the republic may have dodged another bullet.

If Cap & Trade is defeated, the Obama Administration will have little stature when it attends Copenhagen. It knows that if it can't get 51 Senate votes for a domestic Cap & Trade bill, it will never summon the 67 votes needed to pass an even harsher treaty.

So if you're scared by the possibilities of Copenhagen, the best thing to do is tell the Senate to stop Cap & Trade. You can do so here.

Free Trade vs. Uniform Trade Laws

The Constitution assigns few and limited powers to the federal government. Most power is to reside in the people of the individual states.

But one federal power is "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."

Is it really possible to have one national government have jurisdiction over commerce, while local governments have jurisdiction over police powers, morals, and social legislation?

Do not the trade laws go along way toward determining wealth and poverty, which in turn determines the social conditions?

Let's say that a federal protective tariff on raw materials ruins manufacturing in one state, causing high unemployment, even while other states benefit and federal revenues increase. But in that one state, revenues fall short even as poverty-induced crime and idleness-induced addiction soar.

Who was responsible for the declining social conditions in that state, but the feds with their power to regulate commerce?

Is it any surprise that if federal trade or monetary policy damages the economy, the people will demand that the feds fix it?

I don't think it should be any surprise that the federal government now has far more power and responsibilities than is granted by the Constitution. Nor is it any surprise that the European Union is exercising more and more influence over the social policies of its member nations. Economic policy is, to a large extent, social policy. Trade laws are a form of social engineering.

There is no doubt that much of American prosperity was the result of free trade between the states. But all that free trade means is that a state or nation allows imported goods free of charge. It does not require a Trade Agreement between states, or uniform trade laws and commercial regulations administered by a central government.

If a state or nation surrenders its trade authority to a central government, it will soon enough lose its other powers as well. The government that calls the shots on trade is the "real" government with all the "real" sovereignty, no matter what paper Constitutions say.

To counter-act this and protect the liberty of the people, an independent state must

a) avoid any confederation, federation, union, alliance, organization, or community based on "free trade," while at the same time,
b) resist the temptation to engage in extensive trade protectionism or regulation on its own. Once it does so, it will soon become saddled with more and more extensive social legislation as a means of "fixing" bad trade policy.

Progress and Sovereignty

Paul Gottfried writes about sovereignty at Taki:

The “individuals,” whom the state has supposedly oppressing throughout recorded history, did not exist until recently, at least not in the atomistic form in which self-described individuals are now depicting their true selves. Until the modern period individual members of any established community took on their identities by belonging to classes, genders, prevalent confessions, and ethnic groups. . . . It was the state, which came into existence in the late middle ages and early modern period, that created the political precondition for the spread of individual identity. It did this by enacting legal systems that embraced all citizens or royal subjects and by imposing uniform taxation that applied to all classes equally.

Gottfried suggests that nation-states aren't so bad, and that individual liberty as we understand it may not have evolved without it. But he writes that the 20th-century transformation of the State threatens Western Civilization:

• the tyranny of public administration intruding into every area of our lives;
• democracy is no longer defined not as self-government but as Political Correctness;
• supra-national governmental authority imposing "universal values" at the expense of both local custom and individual preference. (Read the whole article for yourself.)
  

I agree with Gottfried that these are indeed distinct threats to the nation-state, which in this day and age I would support only to defend ourselves from an even more distant, centralizing, international tyranny. They are also threats to individual liberty.

But if "Progress," which I would call human moral evolution, exists, then perhaps both the rise of the nation-state and the current internationalization of public administration (from food programs to trade regulations to "collective security") are stages in the sense of "two steps forward, one step back." Perhaps the end result of a World Government will be a global consciousness, which wouldn't be so terrible.

Keep in mind that I don't know if Progress exists, and I do not favor the demise of national sovereignty in favor of world government. And there is definite charm in the local and the particular. At the same time, the national consciousness that did develop in America gave birth to some values favorable to individual liberty. For instance, Americans are less sectarian than they used to be, there's less ethnic clannishness, substantially less racism, and greater tolerance regarding sex. An evolving global consciousness may lead to a greater sense of our common humanity, where wars and national competition will gradually disappear. All of this, too, would be good for liberty.

But we don't need the "help" of nation-states and international governmental agencies to achieve this - at least, not anymore. I believe America would have achieved a more open society much sooner if government didn't get in the way by "imposing" tolerance through laws, court decisions, and federal cops, and thereby provoking resistance. And we can achieve a free, peaceful, global civilization without the "help" of the UN, WTO, or IMF - all they can really do is similarly provoke resistance.

The Internet can help. The free exchange of ideas across national borders is easier than ever before. Virtual communities can develop solutions to poverty, design environmentally-responsible homes, or provide services for each other through barter exchanges. Networking, not political force, is the way to a better future.

Perhaps in some way we must "thank" nation-states for clumsily fostering individual liberty, and maybe even thank international organizations for clumsily fostering trade and peace. That doesn't mean either must command our loyalty forever. If the march of history sees local sovereignty give way to the national, and the national to the global, perhaps it may also force the global to give way also. But there is no where else for sovereignty to go, but back to the individual.