NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 389 



sovereign nation. There are presently about 115 such sovereign organizations. 

 Within the territory of each such organization, or nation, the laws it has devised 

 for the goverance of its own citizens are supreme excepting as it lias agreed to 

 their modification in specific instances by treaty among it and other sovereign 

 nations. Infringements of any these several bodies of law are punishable by 

 the sovereign of that territory and by no other. 



On the other hnnd substantially all of the world ocean (which, with its com- 

 municating seas and gulfs, covers a little more than 71 percent of the earth's 

 surface), is the commonly owned property of all of the sovereign nations of the 

 \^'orld. Individual persons do not, and cannot, own any part of this great ex- 

 panse of territoi-y. It is governed under international law. Individual citizens 

 of any country can be. and are, the objects of international law but only sov- 

 ereigns are its subjects. The essence of sovereignty is independence of other 

 sovereigns. 



The activity of any person or entity upon the ocean, so long as it affects only 

 other persons or entities subject to the same sovereignty, falls within the purview 

 of the law of the sovereign of that person or entity, and infractions are punish- 

 able only by it. In the United States (and many other countries) a separate 

 body of law called admiralty law, covers the bulk of such activities. This law 

 is at the Federal Government level. There is also much other law at the Federal 

 level bearing upon such activities growing out of various Federal laws adopted 

 to implement agreements made among the United States and other sovereign 

 governments, the Submerged Lands Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Act, etc. 



Within the U.S. system of sovereignty certain important segments of this sort 

 of law have been delegated to the purview of the law of the several State gov- 

 ernments of the Union. Among these are the regulation of fishing and of the 

 harvesting of resources of the Continental Shelf in certain definite areas defined 

 by the Submerged Lands Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Act. Thus there 

 are 50 separate bodies of law governing these sorts of activities under, in, and 

 on the ocean by U.S. citizens. 



When, however, actions of a person or entit.v on the international common of 

 the high seas affects, or comes in conflict with, the activities of a person or 

 entity pertaining to another sovereign these effects or conflicts are governed 

 under international law. This is the law which governs sovereigns and not their 

 subjects. It is with this sort of law which the present statement is primarily 

 concerned. 



Much of the comment which has given rise to H.R. 5175, and similar proposed 

 legislation, suggests that there is no regularized public order of the ocean. To 

 the contrary the public order of the ocean is highly regularized, most of it has 

 been rather recently codified in four conventions arising from the 1958 Geneva 

 International Conference on the Law of the Sea, and there are a number of ex- 

 cellent and comprehensive reviews of the status of this law in most prominent 

 languages, and particularly in the English language. 



Most of the present ferment over the law of the sea in the United States is not 

 due to lack of law, or uncertainty about it, but to the impossibility of the U.S. 

 Congress legislating effectively in respect of it so as to keep it abreast of desired 

 public policy in the United States, and to the very slow and cumbersome methods 

 by which the U.S. Government can ohtain modification of this body of interna- 

 tional law to comport with its views of proper public order and policy. 



Within the United States there are bodies of citizens who want some aspect of 

 the law of the sea modified in one direction and others who want the same aspect of 

 It modified in another or opposite direction. This conflict is reflected in repre- 

 sentations by both sides of the controversy to the legislative branch of the U.S. 

 Government. In most conflicts of interest like this among groups of its citizens 

 the United States resolves the problem by a legislative action in the Congress, 

 and appropriate action in the executive branch of the Government, all subject 

 to review by the judicial branch in the light of the Federal Constitution, other 

 law, general public interest, etc. In the case of such conflict of interest over the 

 law of the sea, however, the legislative branch cannot initiate this sequence be- 

 cause it is without power to legislate effectively in this field. Other sovereigns 

 are not required to take cognizance of any of its actions as affecting their own 

 citizens. 



The only way the matter can be moved is for the executive branch of the U.S. 

 Government, as the sovereign in international relations, to reach agreement on 

 the change in international law with the other affected sovereigns. 



If the subject in conflict affects only one or a few sovereigns the United States 

 is often able to obtain such agreement rather readily but the agreement is with- 



