NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 393 



States and they represented the same schism of policy internally with which 

 the Department of State was faced externally on this aspect of the problem 

 of the law of the sea. 



The immediate effect of these conflicts on the 1954 General Assembly was 

 that Iceland teamed up with Latin America and other like-minded minor powers 

 to prevent a solution of the Continental Shelf (petroleum) problem until the 

 fishing limits problem was solved at the same time. The preparatory research 

 and diplomatic activity respecting the fishery problem had not been done by 

 the International Law Commission which had requested that a conference of 

 experts be convened to advise it on the technical aspects of the fishery problem. 

 In a brilliant tour de force the Icelandic representatives caused— 



(a) The whole problem to be referred back to ILC for further study 

 as a whole, and 



(6) An International Conference on the Conservation of the Living Re- 

 sources of the Sea to be called under the United Nations. 

 The United States required to support this move because — 



(a) It could not get this problem out of the OAS system, where it faced 

 certain and disastrous defeat, except by transferring the action to the 

 U.N. system, and 



(6) It could not use the U.N. system unless it would consider the fishery 

 limit and the Continental Shelf issues together as one unitary problem. 



ABSTENTION ISSUE 



Under these pressures the Department of State moved surefootedly and vigor- 

 ously. The four internal political forces (salmon, tuna, shrimp, New England 

 ground fish) found that they had to form a temporary truce internally in order 

 to give the Department of State strength to operate externally or none of their 

 positions would have a chance to prevail. Accommodation of their interests 

 were found in this internal formula : 



(1) The shrimp, tima, and New England people would not oppose an 

 attempt by the Department of State to seek adoption of the principle of 

 abstention into international law if, 



(2) The salmon and halibut people would not oppose an attempt by the 

 Department of State to secure international consent to a narrow territorial 

 sea and freedom to fish under appropriate conservation regulations as needed 

 on the high seas. 



Roughly speaking the principle of abstention provided that where it can be 

 demonstrated that a stock of fish in the high seas is being fully utilized by the 

 fishermen of one or more nations, and where the fishery in question is under 

 scientific management and regulation designed to provide from that stock of 

 fish the maximum sustainable productivity, the nations whose fishermen have 

 not historically fished on these stocks should agree not to fish upon them so 

 long as the nations fishing them continue to carry out necessary conservation 

 measures and to fully utilize the stocks. Fishing in the same areas for other 

 stocks of fish would not be affected. 



It will be noted that this gave the Department of State a perfectly schizo- 

 phrenic position to sell internationally on the fisheries issue by being on the side of 

 freedom of fishing on the one hand while against it on the other. This schizo- 

 phrenia was conveniently cloaked under the all-covering mantle of conserva- 

 tion — creating conditions which would lead to the obtaining of the maximum 

 sustainable yield of food from the ocean. Indicating the complexity of these 

 issues, this cloak has logical validity. 



The shrimp, tuna, and New England people accepted this formulation secure 

 in their belief that no considerable group of nations would agree to such a 

 self-defeating proposition as the so-called principle of abstention and that in the 

 ensuing diplomatic activities the principles of a narrow territorial sea and of 

 freedom to fish on the high seas under appropriate conservation regulations 

 would win out. 



This strategy worked with complete success. At the United Nations Con- 

 ference on the Conservation of the Living Resources of the Sea held at Rome 

 in the spring of 1955 the salmon and halibut advisers on the U.S. delegation, in 

 the last analysis, requested the delegation not to put the principle of abstention 

 to a vote because a precoimt of possible votes satisfied them that it would be 

 soundly defeated and thus permanently killed. The principles of a narrow ter- 

 ritorial sea and freedom to fish on tlie high seas under appropriate conservation 

 regulations survived this Conference unscathed. 

 53-367—65^ ^26 



