Editor, Gazette-Journal:

This letter is in response to Andrew Maggard’s comments in the Jan. 17 Gazette-Journal ("Rights being taken away," Readers’ Write).

Mr. Maggard attributes the following statement to Mr. Frank Gaffney: "The Vienna Convention governing the status of treaties—to which we (the United States) are a party—requires …"

Mr. Gaffney, like Mr. Maggard, is wrong when he states that the United States is a party to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

The U.S. State Department is the source for the statement in my Jan. 10 contribution to Readers’ Write, that the United States is not a party to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

The provisions of an international Convention between the counties other than the United States that was entered into force on 27 January 1980 ("1980" is not a typo) are not legally binding on the United States. The existence of this Convention, despite Mr. Maggard’s assertions, is not an example of "continued usurpation of our laws and rights by the United Nations."

Alan Biddison

Hudgins, Va.