Global Governance vs. National Sovereignty
The International Conference on Global Governance vs. National Sovereignty, sponsored by American Freedom Alliance, concluded Monday in Los Angeles CA.
The chief question posed at the Conference’s opening: Is Global Governance vs. National Sovereignty the West’s next ideological war?
John Bolton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN gave Sunday morning’s Keynote Speech. Ambassador Bolton spoke from first hand experience, sharing front line knowledge accumulated through years of engagement in international diplomacy. He not only gave definition to the term “the Global Governance Movement”, he also described its agenda, which is to subvert national sovereignty in favor of a supranational authority through the invention and initiation of international laws and norms.
After his speech, Ambassador Bolton welcomed Dr. John Fonte, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for American Common Culture at the Hudson Institution, John Yoo, Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkley, Steven Groves, the Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow at the Heritage Institute’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, and Michael Shaw, guiding attorney for Freedom Advocates.org to the stage. The five elaborated intelligently on the consequences of increasing subservience by sovereign nations to the ideology of Global Governance. Both the political makeup and the ideological activism of the UN were indicted.
Following morning breakout sessions focused on:
- Non-governmental organizations as purveyors of Global Governance
- The Green Movement, Agenda 21, Global Warming alarmism and Global Governance
- Who will control the Internet and who will control the seas
The afternoon was kicked off by a Keynote Speech by President Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic. President Klaus spoke directly of the prospects of Global Governance and its European variant, the European Union. Drawing upon his experience as a leader of a former Soviet bloc country, President Klaus warned against the threat of independent sovereign states surrendering control to an un-elected, unaccountable extra-national governing body in a distant capitol.
Larry Greenfield, National Executive Director of the Jewish Institution for National Security Affairs, invited Robert O’Brien, Managing Partner of the Los Angeles office of Arent Fox LLP, Donald Kochan, Professor of Law at Chapman University School of Law and Elan Journo, a fellow in foreign policy at the Ayn Rand Institute into a discussion about the politicization of international law and its impact on national sovereignty. Global and international law were identified as both threats to and the means by which national sovereignty is undermined.
Subsequent to afternoon breakout sessions focusing on:
- The demonization/diminishment of the United States and Israel as a chief Global Governance strategy
- Law-fare, international humanitarian law and their role in undermining sovereignty
- The role of Islam in fostering and encouraging Global Governance
The Honorable John Howard, Australia’s 25th Prime Minister gave the day’s concluding Keynote Speech. The former Prime Minister discussed the concept of the nation state and why it still matters to countries that enjoy governance by popularly elected representative governments.
Sunday’s last panel, featuring President Klaus, Nonie Darwish, founder of Arabs for Israel, John Yoo and John Fonte discussed whether or not liberal democracies have the strength and will to defend their national sovereignty. The endurance of strong constitutions and distinct cultural identities were viewed as key elements in an ongoing uphill struggle by sovereign nation-states against the intrusions of Global Governance. Panelists considered these elements necessary to fending off the introduction and implementation of transnational ambitions by proponents of Global Governance.
The Conference reconvened Monday morning with a spirited discussion concerned with using the political process and judicial system to thwart and defeat Global Governance activism. A distinctly academic intellectual discussion about whether Constitutional Law was robust enough to prevent the political branches of government from violating the Constitution through treaties whose provisions conflict with constitutional guarantees was initiated by Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA School of Law. Professor Volokh gave an extensive portrayal of why the introduction of Sharia Law into the American judicial system is not threatening U.S. Constitutional rule of law. His observations were challenged by Larry Greenfield, Steven Groves and by John Yoo. Professor Volokh’s defense of his position was based primarily on viewing individual situations and circumstances as singular, isolated potential constitutional violations easily rationalized away by equating Islam’s ambitions to those of other, more benign religious institutions found in America. This approach was resounding rejected by Stephen Coughlin, a fellow of the American Freedom Alliance, who successfully portrayed the fallacy of ignoring the global dominance agenda openly preached and taught by proponents of Islamic global dominance under Sharia Law. Mr. Coughlin’s remarks received applause from Conference attendees.
After an address by Professor Mike Farris of Patrick Henry University on how Global Governance threatens the nuclear family through international laws and treaties, the Conference concluded with a reading of and discussion about the Conference Declaration.
The Declaration of Los Angeles: Sovereignty, Democracy and Individual Rights are Indivisible.
We, the undersigned, do hereby append our signatures to the statement below and declare:
THAT national sovereignty, constitutional democracy and the protection of individual rights are indivisible.
THAT constitutional democratic representative government is the most successful political system ever devised by the human mind.
THAT democratic self-government has only existed—and can only exist—within the sovereign liberal democratic nation state in which the people rule themselves.
THAT the principles of liberty, national independence and democratic self-government as articulated in Britain’s establishment of parliamentary democracy, the founding of the American republic, the establishment of the state of Israel, the achievement of dominion status in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the traditional national sovereignty of European democracies, and the continuing growth of liberal democracy in Asia, Latin America and Africa, are superior to any forms of global governance.
THAT the assertion of constitutional government’s obsolescence and decline is utterly false.
THAT while international cooperation should be encouraged and international treaties respected, no supranational authority which claims jurisdiction over liberal democratic states without the consent of the governed should be accepted.
THAT non-governmental organizations which purport to represent an international constituency do not have the legal or political authority to speak for the citizens of liberal democratic nation states, only democratically elected representatives have such legitimate democratic authority.
THAT the constitutions of our respective nations remain the supreme and inalienable law of our lands and if ever a conflict arises between our respective constitutions and any form of supranational authority (such as interpretations of international law, rulings of the United Nations, judgements of international courts, etc.), our Constitutions and constitutional principles will always prevail.
THAT we call on leaders of democratic nation states to reject the demands of transnational advocates to subsume domestic law to international law and stand together with us in upholding the principles of national sovereignty while rejecting the claims and arguments of global governance advocates.
https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/global-governance-vs-national-sovereignty/