Obama Ignores Congress in Order to Commit America to UN Treaty

Despite (or rather, because of) the ramifications of this agreement for our nation’s sovereignty, President Obama not only insists that it’s not a big deal, but also not at all illegal. According to him, he doesn’t need the approval of Congress because he agreed to the treaty through an executive order, basically rehashing his overused argument that can be summed up as “it’s not illegal if it’s done via executive order”:

“This blatant deception is undercut by the fact that the Paris Agreement is listed in the United Nations’ Treaty Collection under the heading ‘Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General.’

Legally speaking, Obama should have followed the ‘ratification’ route, which, according to the UN Treaty Collection website, ‘grants states the necessary time-frame to seek the required approval for the treaty on the domestic level and to enact the necessary legislation to give domestic effect to that treaty.’

However, Obama knew that would be impossible. He chose instead a shortcut. He deposited with the Secretary General an instrument of ‘acceptance,’ which the UN website defines as expressing ‘the consent of a state to be bound by a treaty,’ with no domestic constitutional ratification required first.

The Obama administration used similar tactics to commit the United States to Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The administration treated it as a non-binding political agreement which did not require Senate consent. Only after a bipartisan backlash from Congress did Obama agree to a congressional review period after which the Senate and House could pass a resolution of approval, a resolution of disapproval, or do nothing. The House passed a resolution of disapproval. The Senate would have also passed a resolution of disapproval, but was blocked from doing so by a Democratic filibuster, which spared Obama from having to exercise his veto power.

In the case of the Paris Agreement on climate change, Obama did not even go through the motions. He bypassed Congress altogether.

This matters because the Paris Agreement on climate change would drastically tie down our fossil fuel use in the immediate future and pick our pockets at the same time. In return, the developing countries offer meaningless voluntary pledges that they will do something about their own carbon emissions in their own time if they get paid to do it. Article 9 states that ‘Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.’ (Emphasis added) Article 9 is thus written in such a way as to be legally binding on the developed countries like the United States which become parties to the Paris Agreement.”

Source: Canada Free Press