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Ambassador Coi^ON. Senator, I am quite familiar with the Law 

 of the Sea, but also, I have been the negotiator for many of these 

 North Pacific agreements — I simply do not believe that there is any 

 risk at all of these agreements being opened up by an international 

 dispute settlement panel. 



Senator Stevens. Well then, why did you not just except them 

 from that process? 



Ambassador Colson. Unfortunately, that Law of the Sea Con- 

 vention, most of it was drafted back almost 15 years ago, and it 

 does not provide for reservations. 



Assuming that the process goes forward, and the convention and 

 the amending agreement on deep seabed mining is submitted to 

 the Senate by the President, there are many questions that we will 

 have to go through carefully as to what the U.S. position and inter- 

 pretation of various provisions may be in the course of the Senate's 

 consideration of that treaty. 



Senator Stevens. What about driftnets? 



Ambassador CoLSON. Senator, if there was a person — if there 

 was a fishing operation now that began, a high seas driftnet fishing 

 operation 



Senator Stevens. Such as in the Mediterranean right now? 



Ambassador Colson [continuing]. Or such as another country 

 opening up a fishery in the Pacific. Right now we simply have the 

 threat of trade sanctions as the tool that we use to enforce our 

 point of view in these situations. If we had international dispute 

 settlement with that country, we could bring that country to court. 

 We are looking at this very defensively. 



I think our interests will be served on high seas fishing to be 

 able to go out and ensure that these agreements are abided by, 

 that we will be able, if some other country comes in and starts fisn- 

 ing in the Donut Hole, and they are not part of the agreement. We 

 may use the Coast Guard, but we will also have an option to look 

 at an international dispute settlement. We can take them to court, 

 and they will be violating the rules. They will be violating inter- 

 national law. 



If somebody started violating the driftnet resolution, I am con- 

 fident that an international tribunal would uphold a U.N. resolu- 

 tion providing for a moratorium on driftnet fishing. We would win 

 that case. 



So, I suppose there are downside risks to dispute settlement, but 

 there are also upsides to this, and it is something that the Senate, 

 as it looks at the whole convention, is going to have to consider. 



Senator Stevens. I remember the many times I went to the Lav/ 

 of the Sea negotiations. Senator Magnuson sent me almost every 

 year, and we raised the question 15 and 20 years ago. 



The question was whether we should submit to a new concept of 

 the Law of the Sea that would override existing protection mecha- 

 nisms that were in place — such as we now have for driftnets and 

 in the Central Bering Sea. 



All of the things we have done to protect the North Pacific are 

 at risk under this new concept of the Law of the Sea. They are 

 measures we have done since the Law of the Sea was drafted. I 

 think the administration better get ready for the fact that those of 

 us who helped put such agreements in place are going to oppose 



