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Mr. Bascom. The "freedom of the seas." 



Mr. Fraser. Which is, in some respects, an internationalization of 

 the higli seas. 



Mr. Bascom, Yes, sir. 



Mr. Fraser. That is to say, when you talk about the right to travel 

 on the high seas and the rights incident to it, that this is not dependent 

 upon sovereign rights and there is an international status of the seas. 



If this high seas concept is to be extended to the resources of the seas 

 as well — particularly the ocean bed — then one is talking about an 

 internationalization of those as well. 



Mr. Bascom. Yes. 



Mr. Fraser. As a practical matter it can be looked at in several ways. 

 For example somebody representing the international community, 

 could work on the guidelines and the conflict resolution question. Or, 

 they might assert, certain proprietary interests on the part of the inter- 

 national community. 



There are two choices. They are not necessarily incompatible. One 

 could lead to the other. It would depend on the circumstances. 



This is a hard way to come to the question. 



What I am asking is, would your present attitude toward this be 

 that it would be well to proceed on the international level as contrasted 

 with moving in the direction of extending sovereignty into these areas ? 



There are a whole range of options open with respect to the way the 

 international approach might be disposed of, whether it was simply 

 resolving conflicting claims of individual entrepreneurs, setting out 

 guidelines or whatever, or moving to proprietary assertions. These 

 would be one range of possibilities as contrasted with nations saying, 

 "Well, we are going to move our jurisdictional and sovereign claims 

 outward into the deep oceans as we are able to." 



Mr. Bascom. I am not sure what international body in the world 

 settles problems of piracy today, if some should arise. If you are out 

 mining and somebody boarded you or tried to take over the ship, you 

 clearly have an international incident, 



I suppose the country represented by the owners of the ship is the 

 one that does something about it. It seems logical there might be some 

 international body that could sort out problems that arise. 



The problem you have at the moment is that you are sort of trying to 

 outguess what technology is going to be like, and what the world is 

 going to be like 20 years from now, when it becomes a more reasonable 

 thing to do than at the present. 



I would say that would be hard to do. 



I think you don't start by dividing the ocean up. I think you leave it 

 free until there is some reason to make a specific judgment in some case. 



I also think that the very uncertainty that the United Nations can 

 levy taxes on what you might mine off the sea floor is not a very good 

 idea. It would certainly inhibit exploration. 



Mr. Fraser. Because of its added cost? 



Mr. Bascom. It is because of the uncertainty of the whole thing. 

 Sometimes the United Nations is very erratic about some matters and 

 that would just be one that would discourage people from going into it. 



Mr. Fraser. If you are talking about the U.N. being erratic, I was 

 thinking about your acquisition of concessionary rights from some 

 countries which have recently changed governments. 



