by Marvin Ramírez
Marvin Ramírez
The Post Office and the International Universal Postal Union
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Second of a two parts series – It happened many years ago and most of the people today are not even aware of the creation of one of the most powerful organizations in the world, we are not talking about the United Nations, nor UNESCO, but the Universal Postal Union. Many of us have seen stamps in documents like Birth Certificates or even checks, but never wonder what is the meaning of this? The following article that we received in our offices recently offers an ample idea of what is really going on behind this humongous organization, we proudly publishes this article for learning purposes of the history of this important organization.
The UPU (Universal Postal Union) in Berne, Switzerland, is an extremely significant organization, It was formulated by treaty. No nation can be recognized as a nation without being in international admiralty in order to have a forum common to all nations for engaging in commerce and resolving disputes. That is why the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation could not be recognized as a country.Every state (colony) was sovereign, with its own common law, which foreclosed other countries from interacting with the USA as a nation in international commerce. Today, international admiralty is the private jurisdiction of the International Monetary Fund, et al., the creditor in the bankruptcy of essentially every government on Earth.
by unknown sender
The legal writers were forced to make the definitions wide enough to encompass the private rural carriers, and private advertisers that have placed advertisements on our door-steps, or in our hands. We have thought about this is-sue a lot, and we did not find any other better alternative. Any loophole would have devastated many consum-ers, and caused a plethora of other laws to be enacted to cover the loophole.
Additionally, on the back of the first page, we authenticate the authority of the Post Offi ce with an endorsement, and simul-taneously authenticate our identity by placing a postage meter stamp, from a post-age meter machine that we have purchased in advance,on the lower quarter of the back of the fi rst page. All commercial papers have endorsements to authen-ticate their authenticity. Again, we autograph across the meter stamp, and date. The postage meter stamp is better than a regular stamp,and stamps are said to have rendered seals superfl uous. The purchase of a meter ma-chine requires identifi cation in case the meter machine is tampered with or is stolen. The meter number on the meter stamp can be traced back to the owner (litigant) and therefore authenticates the endorser better than any seal.
What are we doing by placing our paper work into the jurisdiction of the Universal Postal Union? To answer that question,we need to look at the structure and finance of that organization. The of-fi cial aims and purposes of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) are two: to form a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of correspondence; and to secure the organization and improvement of the postal services and to promote in this sphere the development of international collabora-tion. The organization of the circulation of the inter-national mail is based on the freedom of transit, . . . as a result, therefore, only by enduring absolute freedom of transit can the effectual universality of the postal territory be attained. Free-dom of transit is guaranteed throughout the entire terri-tory of the union. Admin-istrations may exchange,through the intermediary of one or more of their number,both closed mails and open mail according to the needs of the traffi c and the require-ments of the service.
Starting in 1878, the union created a category for territories which were recognized as non indepen-dent but which were given all the rights of union mem-bership afforded to clearly independent countries. So the members of the union have been operating as sovereign, independent countries, and their cur-rency is based on the gold French Franc. Gold is the acceptable form of money in international jurisdic-tions, or paper backed by gold. When we purchase postal money orders, the money order is backed by gold, not the fiat money called Federal Reserve Notes. The FRNs, as some call them, are based instead on a promise to pay a debt. The debt is based only upon the full faith and credit of the United States, and lacks any intrinsic value.
Some of the obligations in the convention can, in some states, be introduced into domestic practice with-out involving a nation’s leg-islative process or without even reaching the desk of the chief executive. The Union also sets forth the principle that postal admin-istrations are responsible for loss of, theft from, or dam- age to, insured items, and then goes into detail about exceptions to the principie of responsibility, cessation of responsibility, how the sender is indemnifi ed, and the manner in which re-sponsibility is apportioned between postal administra-tions.
There was only one instance, according to the Belgium delegate, where the bureau would have any power even approximating the right to intervene in the affairs of administrations,that is in the arbitration of disputes, but in this instance the bureau could act only when requested to do so by an administra-tion. The Functions of the International Bureau for the Universal Postal Union include acting as a clear-inghouse for information concerning postal matters. It also functions as a clear-inghouse for international postal accounts and as a conciliator and arbitrator in disputes over postal matters between administrations.
So what we are doing,by placing the postage stamp on our admiralty pa-perwork and endorsement on the back of the first page, is using the authority of the sovereignty of the longest surviving, solvent,governmental authority in the United States. Through the admiralty, we are tak-ing the Post-Offi ce and the judicial system back some two hundred years, and simultaneously creating a new territory with all the rights of union member-ship afforded to clearly in-dependent countries. We are establishing the laws in this new territory with the paper work that we have fi led.
As we will see later, we are also correcting the errors of the founding forefathers;in that we are also bringing the equal rights that they neglected to give to all the people in the United States.We are eliminating all of the legal deficiencies that handicap the sovereign sta-tus of us, the people, within the court. We are guaranteed that all of the parties in the case: the clerk, judge, bai-liff, and litigants have the freedom of transit in the admiralty court. If the clerk,judge, or other offi cial fails to deliver our documents as directed, or delays them, or obstructs them, that person is faced with several penal-ties within the postal rules and admiralty rules. The fi nal advantage is that if we are obstructed, because of the transitory nature of the action, we are in the admi-ralty and can take the case offshore for adjudication in any court in the world.
