INTERNATIONAL LAW 11 



adopted at the 1958 Geneva Conference, does not control high seas 

 fisheries in the North Pacific, or anywhere else for that matter, since 

 it has not been ratified ])y twenty-two nations, the minimum re- 

 quired for its eff^ectiveness. Even ^vhen twenty-two nations have 

 ratified the treaty it will be binding only as among those twenty-two, 

 and otherwise will have little effect except as an advisory document. 

 Neither the Soviet Union nor Japan has ratified and, unless they do 

 so, will not be bound by the treaty. This treaty is, at present, hardly 

 more than a declaration of good intentions by the delegates of the 

 Geneva Conference, and cannot be expected to provide solutions to 

 the more serious fishery problems of the world. 



As more and more pressure is put on the high seas fisheries and 

 more of them are fished beyond their ability to maintain their origi- 

 nal abundance, the need for regulation and management increases. 

 The extensive discussion and negotiation on fishery problems that 

 has taken place throughout the world in the past ten years has 

 sharply illustrated the need for intelligent management of this re- 

 source. Yet development of useful regulations depends upon volun- 

 tary agreement by the nations concerned, and before this can occur 

 there must be a consensus on basic objectives. 



In the North Pacific this need for agreement on basic objectives is 

 as great as it is anywhere in the world, and is probably as difficult to 

 attain as anywhere else. Two of the nations involved, Canada and 

 the United States, are very much alike. The other two, Japan and 

 the Soviet Union, are vastly different from each other and from the 

 first two. We need but mention the wide disparity between the basic 

 economic and political systems of the two North American countries, 

 Japan, and the U.S.S.R. Then there is the great difference among 

 these countries in the importance to them of high seas fishery as a 

 food and as a source of national income. Also, because of the tastes 

 of the American public, fishermen in the United States and Canada 

 are interested primarily in salinon, halibut, herring, and crab. Soviet 

 and Japanese fishermen are equally, if not more, interested in the 

 vast and largely undeveloped demersal fishery of the area. The 

 United States and Canada have no distant-water fishing fleet in the 

 North Pacific. Both the Soviet Union and Japan conduct much of 

 their fishing operations by means of such fleets. Not too much is 

 known about the Soviet acceptance of the concepts, ''maximum 

 sustained yield" and ''maximum economic yield," although there is 



