279 



stance, a distinguished and internationally known expert, whose name I shall 

 not mention, stated this year : 



"Military installations are now centered reasonably close to the land mass ; 

 that will not be the case . . . ten years from now. We will carve out rather large 

 chunks of the ocean away from the land masses which we . . . regard as very 

 important to our national defence and ... we shall deny . . . access by any other 

 nation to the areas Avhich we will block out." 



We have seen that the potential implications of the 1958 Geneva Convention on 

 the Continental Shelf are gravely prejudicial to all countries, whether landlocked 

 or not, that do not possess either the financial resources or the technical compe- 

 tence to maintain their position in the oeeanographic technology race. By en- 

 couraging the establishment of a plurality of national jurisdictions on the ocean 

 floor, the Geneva Convention, unfortunately, also impedes a solution, beneficial to 

 all countries, of the grave problem of the disposal of radio-active wastes. 



It is true that a complementary treaty, the 1958 Geneva Convention on the 

 High Seas prescribes in article 25 : 



"Every State shall take measures to prevent the pollution of the seas from the 

 dumping of radio-active waste, taking into account any standards and regula- 

 tions that may be formulated by the competent international organization." 



But, apart from the fact that by no means all States have ratified the Conven- 

 tion on the High Seas, the problem by its very nature is hardly susceptible to a 

 satisfactory solution in the present legal context. 



The question of preventing the pollution of the seas from the discharge of 

 radio-active wastes has been the subject of prolonged consideration by the Inter- 

 national Atomic Energy Agency. A panel of experts, convened by the IAEA, 

 concluded preliminary consideration of the problem in 1960 by issuing a report — 

 Safety Series No. 5, IAEA, 1961. The report, while recognizing "the subtle and 

 persistent nature of the hazards of radioactivity" which make it desirable in this 

 field that safe waste disposal practices be initiated from the beginning, did not 

 express undue alarm. The attraction of the sea "as an environment for the appli- 

 cation of the dilution and dispersal technique for waste disposal" were acknowl- 

 edged and it was stated that "the bottom of the deep sea can safely receive 

 much greater quantities of radio-active wastes than can be allowed on the con- 

 tinental shelf". And we can all unanimously agree that the sea can receive 

 greater quantities of radio-active wastes than can be allowed on the continental 

 shelf. 



The report continues : 



"After a brief, but factual and comprehensive review of the problem, the expert 

 panel in its recommendations, oriented, however, almost exclusively towards 

 avoiding an unacceptable degree of hazard in man as distinguished from plant 

 life and sea living biota, reached the following conclusions : 



"(1) At present, the release into the sea of highly radio-active wastes from 

 irradiated fuel cannot be recommended as an operational practice ; 



"(2) Wastes of low and intermediate activity may be safely disposed of into 

 the sea under controlled and specified conditions . . .". 



And in this connexion the panel suggested various precautions that it would 

 be advisable to take with regard to selection of disposal sites, packaging of radio- 

 active wastes, etc. 



The expert panel also recommended that — 



"(8) All authorities setting up disposal sites in the sea should provide to 

 a suitable international authority information necessary to maintain an adequate 

 register of radio-active waste disposal into the sea ; 



"(9) The IAEA should maintain this register and should receive : 



(a) notice of the licensing requirements of all sea-disposal areas set 

 up by national authorities . . . 



(b) annual reports on the state of such sites . . . 



(c) the monitoring programme and all relevant scientific findings; 

 "(10) The IAEA should provide for any necessary standardization of monitor- 

 ing techniques". {Security Series No. 5. p. 78) 



My country is not a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and 

 unfortunately it has not been possible for us to obtain access to the records of 

 the discussions in that Agency on this subject. The annual Reports of the Board 

 of Governors, however, are not very informative on this question ; apparently 

 there has been a considerable amount of research and discussion, technical man- 

 nuals have been published, note has been taken of the introduction of more 

 stringent national disposal rules, meetings have been held "to co-ordinate ex- 



