President George W. Bush, who has so often defended American sovereignty on such critical issues as missile defense and our right to defend strategic interests while the United Nations (UN) navel-gazes, has begun to dangerously reverse course. 

With Bush's support of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) and his servile compliance with the United Nations World Court's order regarding Mexican national Jose Medellin, who received the death penalty for committing a gruesome murder in Texas, nothing short of American Constitutional self-determination stands in jeopardy. 

The Medellin matter centers upon a savage June 1993 rape and murder of two little girls walking home in Houston, Texas.  Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, encountered Mr. Medellin and other members of his brutal street gang along an isolated railroad track.  Medellin and the other gang members proceeded to repeatedly rape the two unfortunate schoolgirls and murder them by strangulation, and the girls' bodies weren't discovered for days. 

Quickly apprehended, Medellin and the other perpetrators received the full panoply of Miranda warnings and other American legal protections, which they promptly waived before confessing within hours.  On the basis of those confessions and the unequivocal evidence, a jury justifiably sentenced Medellin to death after his counsel provided a full and vigorous defense. 

Despite living most of his life in the United States (he was 18 at the time he committed the rapes and murders), however, Medellin remained a Mexican national.  Under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, therefore, the police were obligated to notify him at some point of his right to have the Mexican consulate notified of the charges, which they failed to do. 

It is important to keep in mind, however, that this failure was immaterial to Medellin's quick confession, as such consular notice is not required prior to initial police questioning.  Rather, one to three days is the common legal interpretation.  In fact, even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledged that "in contrast to Miranda warnings, which must be given on the spot before the police interrogate, Article 36 of the Vienna Convention does not require the arresting authority to contact the consular post instantly." 

Accordingly, the failure to notify the Mexican consulate had no effect upon Medellin's airtight confession, which occurred within three hours of his arrest. 

Undeterred, however, Medellin eventually grasped at this consular notice technicality in order to reverse his death sentence.  The Mexican government also chose to sue the United States in the United Nations World Court, whose members included such human rights paragons as China, Egypt and Sierra Leone.  By a 14-1 decision, the World Court ultimately condemned the Texas court's death sentence against this savage, and preposterously ordered the U.S. to review the convictions of not only Medellin, but 51 other death-row Mexican nationals. 

The World Court itself exists only for the purpose of arbitrating disputes between nations, and has no authority to issue remedial orders against American or other domestic national courts.  Moreover, Congress has never made the Vienna Convention enforceable.  Despite this, President Bush in 2005 ordered state courts, including the Texas court that convicted Medellin, to honor the World Court's order. 

The fact that President Bush capitulated to a powerless World Court is bad enough, but he compounded the problem in the sense that a President has no such authority under our federal system to order states in such a manner.  Under our Constitution, the Judicial Branch is the only entity entitled to instruct state courts, and then only with regard to federal issues.  President Bush is no more empowered to order state court compliance than he is to order Canadian court compliance on such an issue.  The arrogance of this surrender is therefore all the more astounding and depressing. 

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration's endorsement of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is even more distressing. 

This international agreement, which Ronald Reagan refused to sign, would create an international tribunal in which other hostile nations and environmental activists could sue the United States, and would place all of the world's unclaimed natural resources under its authority.  Third World nations dominated LOST's negotiations in the 1970s, so it naturally places America's sovereignty and interests at a predictable disadvantage. 

In addition to placing the United States under even more international regulation, LOST would discourage innovative mineral exploration and production, including oil beds that would reduce our dependence upon foreign sources, by placing these resources under its control. 

Although LOST does contain some beneficial provisions, such as codification of marine research and navigation rights, these are far outweighed by the treaty's nightmarish potential to create even more anti-American bureaucratic authorities.