20 



to do than to move out broadly and generally in a sweeping manner 

 over something there is not too great an understanding on. 



Mr. Fascell. I want to thank our distinguished colleagues for 

 this thorough and interesting discussion. I have to add here that the 

 latter part of this discussion about the legal theory of ownership^ — 

 sovereignty, if you will — with res]ject to the sea or the deep bed of 

 the sea is very interesting. There is a substantial problem, as I see it. 

 There might be a tremendous distinction between the freedom of the 

 seas in international law as it is now known to exist, and "freedom of 

 the seabed." 



I am not being definitive, but I think I support the i)resent position 

 of our Government, as I understand it. It seems to me the Maltese 

 effort, aside from establishing the prior position of the Maltese 

 Government, has also served another useful purpose. Its action serves 

 to highlight the existence of the problem and one attempt at its 

 resolution that now is taking place in the North Sea. I am not sure 

 that the coastal states of the North Sea have the right to arbitrate 

 among themselves in what manner and proportion the resources of 

 the sea shall be extracted. 



The very real question that is in the air is, are we going to establish 

 sovereignty of the seabed and resources of the bed and water by the 

 exercise of national rights? Are we going to establish sovereignty by 

 separate agreements on a case-by-case basis? Are we going to establish 

 sovereignty by conventions, such as the one entered into by the 

 coastal states? What is the right of sovereignty? Is it dependent 

 upon the state of the art in extracting of resources from the water, 

 or the state of the art in extracting resources from the seabed or 

 the state of the art on the interactions of the land, water, and the 

 seabed? 



I think it is important to get on the record the questions raised by 

 the Maltese proposal and thorough discussions of them. 



Mr. Hanna. I agree 100 percent with what the gentleman says. You 

 have summed up fairly well the areas of the dispute. If you take the 

 Continental Shelf agreement, it really goes on exploitation. That is the 

 way I look at it. It is an extension of exploitation. 



If you go on the basis of the North Sea case, it is a prescriptive right 

 of the state moving its exploitation out until it meets somebody else's 

 exploitation right, moving directly in front of it, and that was the 

 middle of the North Sea where the Great Britain interests moved out 

 one way and the continental interests moved the other. This business 

 of whether or not it should be the possession of everybody has to be 

 brought in too. You have at least three or four different basic concepts, 

 all of which have had some experience. 



For instance, I have been thinking about the interesting situation of 

 the coal mines out of Great Britain that have gone in under the bed 

 of the sea. They have not disturbed the bed of the sea, but the subsoil 

 of the bed of the sea is exploited far below 200 meters with extension 

 of tunnels over the land down into the sea. 



We have the same thing in oil in my State. You drill the hole on land 

 but slant drill it out and you are really exploiting the oil out there 

 below 200 meters, so really that has already been established. 



It is a matter of existing law. It has been developed on the basis of 

 an actual situation. Now, when you start changing things around you 

 are going to have to deal with existing situations. 



