Ill 



fifjii policy objectives of the United States to 

 the one aim of resisting unwarranted claims 

 to exclusive access to certain fishery resources. 

 It will exacerbate relations between the 

 I 'nited States and the Latin American coun- 

 tries to the detriment of tlieir common goals. 

 Tiie total amounts paid under the Act will 

 not be great and may even be mucli less than 

 tiie losses U.S. interests will sustain if other 

 retaliatory measures or diplomatic ruptures 

 result from compliance with this require- 

 ment. 



The Territorial Sea 



If the suggested means of preferring the 

 coastal nation proves to be acceptable, it may 

 also serve the important purpose of remov- 

 ing the impetus to extension of the territorial 

 sea that derives from concern over access to 

 fisheries. It may then become possible to 

 secure agreement on a narrow territorial sea 

 consistent with the totality of U.S. interests 

 in the oceans. 



The Commission recommends that an 

 attempt be made to reach international 

 agreement on the maximum breadth of 

 the territorial sea along with arrange- 

 ments that would protect the right to pass 

 through and fly over international straits. 



Strengthening International Fishery 

 Organizations 



Coverage Many of the existing conventions 

 do not encompass all the waters in which the 

 i-esources in (luestion are to be found. Further- 

 more, they seek to rcgidate designated spe- 

 cies of fish while the increasing sophistica- 

 tion, range, and flexibility of modern high 

 seas fishing equipment tend to make species 

 regulation mirealistic. Even if eflective, spe- 

 cies regulation tends to shift fishing pressure 



to other species or to restrict development of 

 underutilized fish in the same area. 



Finally, taken together, the existing con- 

 ventions cover only a small part of the actual, 

 and even a smallerpart of tiie potential, catch 

 from the world's fisheries. 



The Commission recommends that the 

 geographical area subject to international 

 fisheries management be large enough to 

 permit regulation on the basis of ecologi- 

 cal units rather than of species and, when 

 necessary, include the territorial seas. 

 Fisheries commissions should be author- 

 ized to manage ecological units whenever 

 they conclude that the additional gains 

 from such management are likely to out- 

 weigh the increased costs of undertaking 

 it. 



Adoption of the recommended quota sys- 

 tem in tlie North Atlantic, and possibly the 

 North Pacific as well, will shift fishing pres- 

 sure to otlier areas of the world. To the extent 

 that capital and labor made redundant as a 

 I'esult of a quota system are shifted to the 

 exploitation of unused or underutilized fish- 

 eries, the quota system will help to achieve 

 the primary world objective of maximizing 

 the use of the living resources of the sea. But 

 redundant capital and labor also may be 

 sliifted to areas that are l)eginning to show 

 signs of depletion and are not covered by any 

 fishery convention. This illustrates the need 

 for a worldwide system of regional fishery 

 conventions, each tailored to its particular 

 biological, environmental, and economic con- 

 ditions but all integrated in a tndy interna- 

 tional framework of analysis. 



The Commission recommends that an 

 appropriate existing international orga- 

 nization be entrusted with the tasks of 



