Republican US Senate Candidate Joe Miller today addressed his primary opponents’ history of support for the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

“I find my opponents’ history of support for this naked power grab by our would-be global governors at the United Nations deeply troubling,” Miller said. “It is simply not enough that Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan are running from their records during a hotly contested senate election.” 

Miller continued, “I could never support a treaty that surrenders the sovereignty of the people of the United States and empowers the United Nations, for the first time, to directly tax and regulate our citizens. Freedom from the arbitrary decrees of unaccountable rulers is the very reason we fought the Revolutionary War. Why should we voluntarily submit to such a regime in our time?”

Dan Sullivan has been described in the Anchorage Daily News as “a strong advocate in government meetings, congressional testimony and public speeches on the importance of U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention.”

In a speech delivered at the 2007 Arctic Energy Summit in Anchorage, Sullivan praised Senator Murkowski for her “leadership on [Arctic] issues, particularly the Law of the Sea ratification.” He further stressed that “updating our Arctic policy will involve working closely with Congress on a variety of issues, including U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention.”

Sullivan went on to say that “avoiding nationalistic policies and sovereignty conflicts” should be a high priority, and stressed the need for “a global community working toward common global interests.”

Mead Treadwell also has a long history of support for ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

In a speech before the Juneau World Affairs Council in 2011, Treadwell stated unequivocally that “international cooperation in the Arctic must be strengthened — with the force of both international law and ratification of the Law of the Sea.”

The Alaska Dispatch described Treadwell’s advocacy for LOST in a 2012 story: 

“Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell is doing his part to keep it on the table. Although he says he has concerns about the treaty, Treadwell, who has a long history of working for the treaty and for Arctic issues, has worked diligently toward passage. He has testified repeatedly in front of Congress, regularly partakes in the State Department-chaired monthly Arctic Policy Group meeting, attends conferences where the treaty is discussed, and leads Alaska in its representation to the Arctic Council, where the Law of the Sea is the agreed-upon legal framework for resolving Arctic issues.”

Joe Miller concluded, “Both candidates’ meager efforts to back away from their past, hardline backing of LOST are likely to be seen by increasingly skeptical Alaskan voters as election-year pandering.”