UN Treaty

[Brian Bertha]

This concerns me anyone care to comment

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/10/15/us-arms-usa-treaty-idUSTR...

[Jon Roland]

The UN is not a treaty so far as the U.S. is concerned. Congress consented to join it as a member, but that is not a treaty as that term is used in the U.S. Constitution. The General Assembly and Security Council are just ongoing diplomatic assemblies, having no force of law in the U.S. There are various organizations within the UN system to which the U.S. belongs, but none of them have the force of domestic law. The UN is not some kind of foreign power with a will of its own. It is just a more efficient way to conduct diplomacy.

[Brian Bertha]

Well Jon I certainly hope it stays that way but I trust little this current administration does. As to the UN and efficient diplomacy Ill take with a BAG of salt :-)

[Jon Roland]

It's more efficient in the sense that it allows diplomacy to be conducted at a lower cost. Imagine the cost of 196 nations each maintaining an embassy in 195 other nations. That's even too expensive for the U.S., never mind some small island nation with only a few thousand citizens. And so many matters involve more than just two nations at a time that it is unwieldy to have to arrange diplomatic conferences for every such case. It is just more convenient for everyone to send one ambassador to one place, the UN, and there meet with as many other national ambassadors as necessary from one day to the next.

We just need to discourage anyone from talking about the UN as though it were some kind of world government with lawmaking powers. It has no authority to authorize us to go to war without a congressional declaration of war.