76 SEA GRANT COLLEGES 



codification of the existing law, and established vast new rights and duties. Under 

 the Convention on the Continental Shelf, nations acquired sovereign jurisdiction 

 to the natural resources of the sea bed and sub-soil of the submarine areas adja- 

 cent to the coast, and outside the limit of the territorial sea, to a depth of 200 

 meters or beyond, to where the depths of the superjacent waters admits the ex- 

 ploitation of the natural resources of these areas. This Convention also estab- 

 lished rules for delineating the boundaries between nations facing the same piece 

 of continental shelf. It is most fortunate that this Convention came into force 

 almost simultaneously with the discovery of submarine hydrocarbon deposits 

 under the North Sea, thereby providing a basis for delineating the jurisdictions 

 of the several nations surrounding it; otherwise, the resulting squabble would 

 have been fearful to behold. 



Under this same Convention, the United States has acquired sovereignty 

 over 850,000 square miles of adjacent sea bottom. This v/et real estate adds 

 about 25% to our territory. This has further stimulated interest in finding out 

 just what this damp domain is good for-- what is there and how it may be used. 

 It has also raised the question of how far out along the bottom of the deep sea 

 we may consider the exploitable sea bed to be yet "adjacent" to the coast. The 

 matter of the ownership of the sea bottom remote from the shelf was purposely 

 left open at the Geneva Conference, because the needs and capabilities of men as 

 they develop in this region must be the guide to the further progressive develop- 

 ment of the law. 



The Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the 

 High Seas establishes an elaborate and useful set of rules for the exploitation of 

 the fisheries, but leaves these resources in the status of common property of all 

 men and all nations. It establishes a satisfactory framework for the use of these 

 common property resources and their maintenance in such condition as to be 

 capable of providing the maximum supply of food and other marine products. It 

 makes no provision, however, for who harvests the fish. This must be resolved 

 in open competition, under the rules of the Convention, and perhaps eventually 

 by some subsidiary agreements among nations. 



It is clear that in the major part of the watery realm, covering nearly 

 three quarters of the planet, there will be increasing competition for the use of 

 the resources. It is already abundantly clear that the inshore waters, the mar- 

 ginal sea, along the coast of the United States and elsewhere iis becoming crowded. 

 The coastal belt within 50 miles of the ocean is now occupied by 52 million peo- 

 ple, 29% of our population, and contains a vast industrial and urban complex. The 

 margin of the sea, its beach and shore, is used for a variety of purposes, in- 

 cluding seaside recreation, ports and harbors, industrial sites, power plants, 

 and waste disposal establishments. To accommodate all of these uses we must 

 stretch the beaches, and properly allocate the various uses. Similarly, the 

 adjacent waters are of tremendous importance for recreation, for transportation, 

 for production of petroleum and minerals, as a source of fresh water on arid 

 coasts, for cooling water for power plants, for disposal of domestic and indus- 

 trial wastes, and for the production of animal protein from the sea. It is only in 

 bays, estuaries, and along the margin of the sea that fish farming is likely to be 

 practicable in the foreseeable future, because it is only here that one can raise 

 sedentary organisms or fence in non- sedentary ones, and can effectively modify 

 the environment at any acceptable cost. This multiplicity of alternative, and 

 sometimes conflicting, uses demands the highest degree of sophistication in the 

 application of science, engineering, economics, sociology, law, politics, and 

 diplomacy, if we are to develop the necessary new institutional arrangements 

 for the fullest and most beneficial use of this region. 



SOME IMPORTANT RESOURCES 



The resources of the sea include not only what we take out of it, the extrac- 

 tive resources, but all of the ways in which we use the sea. The extractive re- 



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