277 



ever, the framers of the Convention were not in touch with developing technology 

 and ' apparently did not conceive of the possibility that the sea-bed could be 

 exploited both for military and commercial purposes at depths beyond the 

 arbitrarily selected 200-metre isobath. 



As Grunawalt states in an article published in the 2Vcw York Law Journal of 

 24 January 1967, "the definition of the continental shelf, as incorporated in the 

 Convention, is a compromise between the 200-metre rule advocates — proponents 

 of fixity and certitude — and depth of exploitability proponents", that is, ad- 

 vocates of the need for flexibility. 



In the light of current technological developments, however, the compromise 

 turns out to be no compromise at all ; it is clear that the sea-bed beyond the 

 200-metre isobath will soon be subject to exploitation. The only question is, 

 would it be exploited under national auspices for national purposes, or would 

 it be exploited under international auspices and for the benefit of mankind? The 

 wording of the Convention, whatever may have been the intentions of its authors, 

 provides powerful legal encouragement to the political, economic and military 

 considerations that are inexorably impelling technologically advanced States to 

 appropriate the sea-bed and the ocean floor beyond the 200-metre isobath for 

 their own use. 



The definition of the continental shelf, as incorporated in the 1958 Geneva 

 Convention, has lent itself to two basic interpretations. 



The first is based on the idea, first authoritatively enunciated in the Truman 

 Proclamation, that the shelf is but the geophysical extension of the coastal 

 State's land mass and that, therefore, it is just and reasonable that the littoral 

 State should lay claim to its resources. This theory gives considerable weight 

 to the word "adjacent" in the second line of article 1 of the Continental Shelf 

 Convention. Thus it is held that there are three elements defining the sub- 

 marine areas included in the continental shelf : the 200-metre isobath, depth of 

 exploitability and adjacency, or at least some vague degree of proximity, to 

 the coast. In support of this view, it is maintained that a careful analysis of 

 the proceedings of the Fourth Committee of the United Nations Conference on 

 the Law of the Sea shows that the deep sea floor, with the possible exception 

 of areas immediately adjacent to the coasts, cannot be included within the 

 scope of the Continental Shelf Convention. 



Exponents of this approach recognize the existence of a possible legal prob- 

 lem with regard to submarine areas situated under still undefined depths of 

 water and at a still undefined distance from the coast. They advocate either 

 delaying the establishment of a legal regime for these, I repeat, still undefined 

 areas until their utilization for military or commercial purposes forces the 

 issue, or suggest in the words of Northcutt Ely that "until enough inter- 

 national competition and friction develop to justify the creation of some 

 advance license system . . . recognition of the flag of the raft or other surface 

 mechanism from which the exploration is controlled sufficiently identifies the 

 jurisdiction which ought to have plenary control over the exploration and over 

 the exploitation of the resources so discovered". 



Apparently the distinguished author did not envisage the possibility either 

 of commercial or military, manned or unmanned permanent installations on 

 the ocean floor without surface support, or the possibility of attempts at com- 

 petitive exploitation of the same mineral or petroleum deposit. 



The above interpretation of the 1958 Geneva Convention has, however, not 

 gone unchallenged since it is in direct contradiction to the explicit wording of 

 article 1(a), which states that the continental shelf extends "to the submarine 

 areas adjacent to the coast ... to a depth of 200 metres and beyond that limit 

 to where the depth of the superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the 

 resources of the said areas". Thus an influential school of thought denies the 

 possibility of any legal problem whatsoever. Professor Shigeru 6da of Tohoku 

 University, for instance, points out that "there is no room to discuss the outer 

 limits of the continental shelf or any area beyond the continental shelf imder the 

 Geneva Convention since ... all the submerged lands of the world are neces- 

 sarily parts of the continental shelf by the very definition of the Convention." 



Under this concept a coastal State, as its technical capability develops, may 

 extend its jurisdiction across the deep sea floor up to the midway point between 

 it and the coastal State opposite, in accordance with the rules contained in 

 article 6 of the Convention. Such an interpretation gives the governing Powers 

 of islands such as Clipperton, Guam, Azores, St. Helena or Easter, sovereign 

 rights over millions of square miles of invaluable ocean floor. 



