Libertarians recommend Senate defeat Koh nomination

America’s third largest party Tuesday recommended the Senate defeat the nomination of Harold Koh to be State Department legal adviser, citing a history of opposition to gun rights and national sovereignty.

“The State Department legal adviser is supposed to protect our national sovereignty in treaty negotiations and negotiate pacts that uphold the Constitution and protect Americans’ rights. Under no circumstances should the Senate confirm someone who believes the Constitution should give way to what he calls ‘the global rules,’” said Donny Ferguson, Libertarian National Committee Communications Director.

“That alone disqualifies him from representing the United States in treaty negotiations,” said Ferguson.

If confirmed, Koh would play a major role in negotiating treaties such as the proposed “Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials” (CIFTA.)

The treaty -- backed by Obama and Koh -- requires all guns to be marked and tracked by the government. Obama has urged the Senate to adopt it.

In a lecture titled “A World Drowning In Guns,” reprinted in the May 2003 “Fordham Law Review,” Koh praised CIFTA as “the best model” for international gun control.

More troubling, Koh claims it requires signers “to standardize national laws,” that “the only meaningful mechanism to regulate illicit transfers is stronger domestic regulation,” and that “control measures within the United States” must be adopted.

In the lecture, Koh urges the creation of “a global system of effective controls on small arms and light weapons” and a “global gun control regime,” specifically targeting the kinds of weapons many persecuted peoples must own to protect themselves from aggression. He blames international violence and the rising numbers of refugees, not armed governments, but on “men with guns.”

Koh’s solution? Strip people of their guns and trust weapons to the corrupt governments often responsible for the very violence Koh cites.

Koh has also repeatedly demanded the United States submit to “transnational legal processes” and “transnational jurisprudence,” in which laws intended to protect our national sovereignty and constitutional rights could be overruled by international authorities.

That clashes sharply with the Libertarian Party, who upholds both the Second Amendment and the United States’ national sovereignty.

“Libertarians believe that what makes America safe and free are our constitutional rights and our hard-fought freedoms. While the Constitution guarantees those freedoms from infringement by our federal government, it is now up to the Senate to protect that Constitution from other countries who view our constitutional freedoms as deviations that must be eliminated through the kinds of treaties and global laws Koh has promised to fight for,” said Ferguson.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has scheduled a Wednesday vote on the Obama nominee, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Clinton Administration.

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