10 



Mr. Fascell. Not yet, but without objection we will attempt to 

 get the Senator's statement included in the record at this point. 



(The following comment is made in "The United Nations at Twenty- 

 One," Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States 

 Senate, by Senator Frank Church, Idaho, Member of the Delegation 

 to the 21st Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations:)^ 



The greatest untapped reservoir of the world's wealth lies, beyond national 

 jurisdiction and under title to no nation, at the bottom of the seas. Mineral 

 riches on the ocean floor may seem of little economic value today. But a generation 

 from now the world's population will have doubled, greatly multiplying the 

 demands on present known deposits of mineral resources. History is replete 

 with incidents of waters bloodied by conflict over the ocean's bounty. Sovereign 

 rights over coastal waters have been a constant source of international controversy. 

 As the population vise tightens, national rivalries for the exploitation of the deep 

 ocean's resources could easily become a new threat to peace. 



By conferring title on the United Nations to mineral resources on the ocean 

 floor beyond the Continental Shelf, under an international agreement regulating 

 their development, we might not only remove a coming cause of international 

 friction, but also endow the United Nation.? with a source for substantial revenue 

 in the future. It should be remembei'ed that the Federal Government of the 

 United States financed much of its operation, for more than a century, through 

 the sale and management of its public lands. 



(The remarks of Representative Hanna, appearing in the Con- 

 gressional Record of August 24, 1967, follow:) 



The Law and the Land Under the Sea 



(By Hon. Richard T. Hanna, of California, in the House of Representatives, 

 Thursday, August 24, 1967) 



Mr. Hanna. Mr. Speaker, the enthusiastic romance with the promise and 

 potentials of the "v/et frontier" of the world's oceans has continued through 

 the last few years, unabated. On a more practical plane, Government agencies 

 have cautiously extended their activities, sensing a possible explosion of funding 

 for mission-oriented projects. Most impressively, private industry has committed 

 substantial resources toward engineering and scientific projects for meaningful 

 intrusions into the underseas environments. All this has appropriately engendered 

 rising concern over the status of the law of the sea and how, given the under- 

 developed condition of this facet of jurisprudence, orderly and effective develop- 

 ment and exploitation of the envisioned potentials can be realized. 



Viewpoints of concern include our own early observations before the Oceanog- 

 raphy Subcommittee over a year ago, when we likened the prevailing lawless 

 conditions in the "wet frontier" to the situation in the early "west frontier." 

 The rule of the six-gun prevailed. The violence of possession gained, being nine 

 points of the law, we were provided with a bloody chapter in our development. To 

 reconstruct that history in the sea in an international scramble for possession 

 and protection would not be appealing. However, to see in this dilemma the 

 necessity for cooperation and mutual assent to some developing rules does not in 

 our judgment dictate an immediate turning to the United Nations, as some have 

 suggested, as the sole forum for an answer. Our attention, as has that of other 

 thoughtful and concerned persons has been drawn to the proposal, most recently 

 expounded by the able Senator from Idaho, Senator Church. "We choose to look 

 upon the Senator's suggestion as an invitation for a broad dialog on the problem. 



In the hopes of encouraging a continuance of investigation and suggestion, 

 we have set down some thoughts which, in our judgment, question the wisdom of 

 a hasty turn to the United Nations at this juncture in the emerging situation 

 under seas. This is not to say that some role cannot in the early stages be assumed 

 by the United Nations. Nor is it to deny that ultimately, that role may wisely be 

 expanded. 



1 Committee Print, 90th Congress, 1st Session, February, 1967, p. 25, Committee on Foreign Relations, 

 U.S. Senate. 



