Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 22, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press. Wednesday. April 22.1981 focus Why . Torpedoed sea Law talks president Ronald Reagan s sudden decision to review the us approach to the seven year Effort of a United nations conference to write a new Law of the sea treaty on the eve of its completion has surprised Anil angered most participants. This treaty is of great importance to Canada in general it is important to Manitoba in particular because of the potential that sea bed mining could have on the future of the giant Nickiel mine at Thompson. In this article written far the be published tomorrow the personalities involved in Ike discussed As Well As the real reasons for it. By Nicholas Burnett Washington Post Washington on Friday March 6, Leigh Ratiner a Washington at Torney went to new York to see George Aldrich acting head of the . Delegation to the United nations conference on the Law of the sea. The tenth six week session of the con Ference was about to begin at in Headquarters. Ratiner a former . Negotiator at the 1975-76 conference wanted help in getting Access to other delegations he had a contract from the Commerce department to Survey foreign Ocean mining. Aldrich promised his people would help. Ratiner then announced that James Malone an incoming assistant Secre tary of state wanted him on the . Delegation As his personal representative. According to informed sources close to the delegation Aldrich told him it was impossible Ratiner did not have a current Security clearance. The next Day Deputy Secretary of state William Clark dismissed Al Rich and most of his senior staff. Malone became the new chief and Ratiner a member of the delegation. Malone assistant Secretary for oceans and International environmental and scientific affairs has limited Back ground in Law of the sea issues. Ratiner was appointed As an expert to advise Malone during at least the first couple of weeks of the conference ses Sion. State was stunned the firings stunned the state depart ment. They amazed the delegates from about 150 countries who were Assem bling in new York where the Confer ence was of open that monday. One . Delegate John Temple swing Learned of his dismissal while Reading a newspaper As he made his Way to the conference by subway on monday morning five Days before on March 2, the state department issued a terse nine line press release on Clark s orders. The Secretary of state had instructed our representative to the in Law of the sea conference to seek to ensure that the negotiations do not end at the present session of the conference pending policy review by the United states no . Ally much less any other foreign country was informed before the Public announcement. The american decision flabbergasted them. All had expected this session to be the last Lap in a diplomatic Marathon that began seven Long years ago. A new administration clearly has the right to review inherited policy. It clearly has the right to appoint its own people to key positions. Yet the Way the changes were made has deeply Hurt America s credibility in the world and. Raised troubling questions about the Reagan administration s conduct of diplomacy. Other delegations Are very disturbed by the appointment of Ratiner a Man with wide contacts but deeply suspect to Many at the conference and indeed to some on the . Team. As soon As he came on Board Ratiner. Began to promote Christopher Pinto of sri Lanka for conference president although officially the United states had no candidate. The former presi Dent Shirley Amerasinghe also a sri lankan died last december. Ratiner is a close Friend of Pinto and seems to have convinced Malone that the United states could control the conference through him according to informed sources. However Ratiner was set Back on March 13 when the conference instead selected . Tommy Koh of Singapore As president. Everybody s Friend Ratiner headed the Interior depart ment s Ocean mining administration in 1975-76. As such he was chief . Negotiator for deep seabed Mineral issues at the Law of the sea conference. In Early 1977 he left the government to become a partner in the High powered Law firm of Dickstein Shapiro and Morin. According to his resume he has since been counsel and adviser to several major corporations with eco nomic interests in International re source negotiations including the in Law of the sea one corporate client was Kennicott Copper Leader of an Ocean mining consortium. Ratiner resigned from the Interior department on Jan. On Jan. 25 he registered As a lobbyist for Kennicott the corporation dispensed with his services in 1979. In april 1977 he testified on Ocean mining before a House committee without declaring his link to Kennicott a company particularly vocal in its opposition to the draft Law of the sea treaty. Ratiner was widely rumoured to have had something to do with surprising and mysterious revisions to a Compro Mise treaty text during the sixth ses Sion of the conference in july 1977. The revisions drawn up by a Small group of third world negotiators including Pinto made that draft impossible for the United states to accept. Moon expert too last year Ratiner played an important role in forcing . Reconsideration of the proposed in Moon treaty. This treaty which awaits ratification de clares the resources of the Moon and outer space to be the common Heri Tage of common heritage is a term from the Ocean Law negotiations. The in general Assembly adopted it As a description of the sea bed s resources in 1970, with the United states voting in favor. Ratiner is close to democratic representative John Breaux of Louisiana a leading critic of both the Moon treaty and the Law of the sea conference. Breaux and 13 House colleagues wrote to president elect Reagan last dec. 10 to urge a review of the draft Law of the sea treaty. They were concerned that this Spring s negotiation May produce a fundamentally unacceptable Theodore Kronmuller an aide to Breaux drafted the letter. Kronmuller wrote a dissertation at Cambridge University that concluded lawful for companies to mine the seabed even Canada has fought hard at the in sea Law conference to limit seabed mining production in order to protect the economic future of Canadian land based Nickel producers such As the mine at Thompson James Breaux. Without a Law of the sea treaty. Kron Muller is today a leading candidate to become a Deputy assistant Secretary of state under Maione. The influence of Ratiner Breaux and Kronmuller on Malone and the administration s abrupt actions have cast a pall Over the Law of the sea Confer ence. Many delegations now believe the United states is preparing to withdraw from the negotiations. Foreign nations wonder if they can Trust Washington. Trust has been an essential ingredient in bringing 150 nations so far Over the last seven years. The Only Way the conference has been Able to Progress As it has is on the basis of Trust and Confidence among those says Lee Kimball a consultant to the United methodist Law of the sea project and a Long time observer of the conference. It s incredible that the . Has been Able to stymie the momentum of the conference when every other nation including our european allies wanted to conclude the 320-paragraph draft treaty they expected to Complete this month is essentially a Compromise. It sets International boundaries 12 Miles for Territo rial Waters and 200 for exclusive economic zones it Guaran tees navigation and aircraft overflight rights on the High seas through the eels and through Straits. The . Joint chiefs of staff Are eager to have these navigation rights. With them the . Navy can steam uncontested through strategic Straits like Gibraltar and Hormuz. With them its submarines can remain underwater As they pass through coastal seas that other nations Are increasingly claiming As Sovereign. Creeping jurisdiction the unilateral Extension of territorial Waters become a serious prob Lem in the last 20 years the treaty would Lay it to rest enhancing . National Security. As a quid pro quo for granting these navigation rights the treaty gives the third world a share in the wealth of the seabed. More than 1.5 trillion tons of Black potato shaped nodules Rich in Nickel Copper manganese and Cobalt lie on the Ocean floor. Nobody knows How they got there. Most Are in the Pacific at Depths of feet. The Enterprise not a spaceship but a new in Agency would control develop ment of the nodules and itself operate some mines distributing their profits to the developing nations. The idea behind this is that As the nodules belong to no one As they Are Mankind s com Mon their exploitation should Benefit the poor countries of the world. At the same time the draft treaty gives firm title to Ocean mines operated by commercial consortia from the industrialized countries. Four consortia exist at present each headed by an american corporation Lockheed Ken Newcott . Steel and International Nickel. The key to the mining arrangements is a parallel system each site mined by a private consortium will be matched with one mined by the enter prise. But the Enterprise will need initial capital and knowhow. Only the private consortia have the technology to mine the seabed. So the draft Calls for the United states and other industrialized countries to provide Startup funds and to Transfer the necessary technology to the Enterprise. The treaty also sets production limits on seabed mining. These restrictions which the United states opposed were added at the insistence of today s Metal producers led by Canada with its huge Nickel deposits who want to protect their Domestic mining industries. There Are other provisions in the draft treaty. It authorizes Oil and Gas development on the Continental shelf regulates fisheries protects the Marine environment clarifies research rights and so on. But its essence is the Trade off Between navigation rights for the industrialized countries and a Sciare in seabed mining for the third world. Nicholas Burnett is a Washington based free Lance writer on economics and International affairs. Premiers fought about amending not charter the a Toht or Ennior Haf a liner or Ima the eight premiers battling prime minister Pierre Trudeau s Constitution Al package fought amongst themselves at their first private session in Ottawa wednesday evening. But the Row was about the amending formula not the charter of rights according to a senior Saskatchewan government source. A number of governments thought that the amending formula should be tougher that is that a two thirds vote of the legislature should be required for opting out not just a simple Majori the source said. That was where the tension the wednesday night meeting car ried through until the Small hours of thursday morning breaking up just hours before the eight premiers went on National television in the Ottawa con Ference Centre to unveil their alternate plan for simple Patria Tion with an amending formula. According to the source All eight premiers had agreed in earlier Tele Frances Russell phone conversations to make opting out of constitutional amendments much More difficult by requiring a two thirds vote. In every legislature but Alberta s that would necessitate the government of the Day getting some opposition support for removing the province from a constitutional change favored by seven other provinces representing 50 per cent of the population of Canada. However when the premiers Gath ered face to face in an Ottawa hotel suite for the first time Quebec Premier Rene Levesque fresh from his massive election Victory earlier in the week insisted that opting out be possible by a simple majority or just the govern ment of a province. According to the source several pre Miers accused Levesque of reneging on an earlier Deal but Levesque merely replied by saying he would walk out of the meeting unless the other seven premiers went along with his demand. Because the other provinces did not want to shatter their United front and particularly did not want to lose the All important psychological advantage of having one of the two big provinces on their Side they acceded to Leves que s wishes. The Saskatchewan source s version of the premiers meeting backs up the denials by Premier Sterling Lyon and others that he and Levesque fought their six colleagues on the charter. The Montreal Gazelle in a Story last saturday reported that Lyon and Levesque refused to go along with the six other premiers in putting Trudeau s treasured rights Bill into their constitutional proposal and thus torpedoed any Hope of an agreement Between the Federal government an d the eight dissenting provinces. However the Saskatchewan source confirmed that the Bill of rights was discussed at a private meeting among the premiers thursday afternoon after the Federal government had rejected their constitutional package. Ottawa said the opting out clause would create a confederation of shopping the meeting was held to decide where the eight provinces would go from the source continued. Some of the premiers were More prepared to Compromise on the Bill of rights than others. However it was decided to stick with the earlier agree ment and see what would happen. The feeling was that Trudeau could still come to the table with us and could add his Agenda items if he wanted the source said that premiers Peter Lougheed of Alberta John Buchanan of Nova Scotia Brian Peckford of Newfoundland and Bill Bennett of . All indicated at the thursday meeting that they would be prepared to Compromise on a Bill of rights. Saskatchewan too agreed that it might accept a much More limited charter leaving Lyon and Levesque As the two hold outs. However the source insisted there was no Row Over the Issue because it Felt that accommodation might still be achieved if Trudeau Only would come to the bargaining table. All eight premiers were Able to agree on that. Initially Lyon denied that the Bill of rights had been discussed at the pre Miers gathering. But under opposition questioning in the legislature monday Lyon admitted that he could not say Over the course of Many hours of meetings that the charter had never been discussed at All. Lyon Sticks by his denial that he and Levesque caused fury among the other premiers Over their refusal to consider a charter. The Gazette Story which the newspaper has refused to retract despite the threat of a Law suit from Lyon said the other six premiers were so angry at Lyon and Levesque that some threatened to walk out and join the Federal government currently Only supported by Ontario and new Brunswick. The Story went on to say the premiers were Able to understand Levesque s position but Felt that Lyon was dogmatic to the Point of Bennett Peckford and Quebec inter governmental affairs minister Claude Morin have joined Lyon in claiming the Gazette Story is a Complete fabrication. What infuriates the provinces is the belief that the Story was a Federal Plant designed to discredit the provincial initiative. The eight premiers Are going ahead with their plans for nation wide full Page ads defending their idea for Sim ple Patria Tion with an amending for Mula permitting opting out. Their Battle now is for Public opinion. But All the confusion and controversy puts them off to a shaky Start. Doonesbury a Tenter Ponl-rk06 off amx. 80y60ta Namki doonesbury to no Glamour s if us atari you ixxn6 in Washington that s i thought. I Mokry. Have been wrri6ht. 1 know but i it Thawn i 4 i ;