NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 399 



Mexico are caught off Hawaii ; albacore tuna tagged off Mexico are caught off 

 Japan. 



All of this is new information since 194(3, and most of it since 1955. We are 

 just beginning to learn about the movements of the living resources of the sea 

 and the impossibility of fencing them into pens constructed of nice lines diplo- 

 mats draw on charts at international conferences. 



(9) In a million years time, or such a matter, man has learned something of 

 that 29 percent of the earth's surface that is dry land, and learned reasonably 

 well how to bend its resources to his use. Only now is he beginning to earnestly 

 inquire about tliat other 17 percent of the earth's surface which is the ocean and 

 learn how to bend its resources to his use. 



The increase in knowledge and understanding derived from the past 5 years of 

 ocean research with modest resources have been so astounding that one can only 

 say that the major effort now beginning to be directed toward that end is likely 

 to be as important to man's activities and welfare as was the industrial revolu- 

 tion of the 17th and 18th centuries, or the neolithic revolution of the fifth and 

 sixth milleniums B.C. 



Whoever can see today what change will be required in the public order of 

 the sea in the next few years is indeed a farsighted person. 



SOME QUESTIONS 



In the field of public policy respecting the law of the sea one hears a number 

 of questions asked. It may be useful to examine a few of these to see how the- 

 law now stands and to see where the interest of the United States may lie. 



The 3-mile limit for the territorial sea 



(1) The 3-mile limit is outmoded it is said, and the U.S. Department of State 

 should quit acting like an old fogey and get in line with the times. This state- 

 ment has been said in print repeatedly by one or two proponents and one might 

 ask several questions about it. 



If the United States is going to abandon the 3-mile limit for the territorial 

 sea what limit should it adopt? Upon what other limit for the territorial sea 

 could a larger consensus be established? What broader limit for the territorial 

 sea would better serve the general and long-term interests of the United States 

 and the rest of the nations? The International Law Commission has said that 

 there is no case in international law for a limit of more than 12 miles and voted 

 on proposals at the 1958 conference indicate little or no support for a limit beyond 

 12 miles. 



The 3-mile limit never came to a vote in 1958 or 1960. There is no reason to 

 believe that very many who voted for 6 miles plus some formula or other being 

 pushed by Canada or the United States or both to help on the fishery interest, 

 would not have voted as readily for a 3-mile limit. It is certain that a con- 

 siderable number of countries that voted for a 6-mile limit, plus something, under 

 pressure from the United States in search of a compromise to get a two-thirds 

 vote, left the 3-mile limit most reluctantly. It was my belief then and now that 

 a majority of nations, and certainly the group of nations carrying the bulk of 

 the world's commerce, favored a 3-mile limit then and do now. It was highly 

 doubtful to me then, and is now, that the maneuvering of the United States in 

 1958 and 1960 to pick up additional votes by going to 6 miles plus something extra 

 for fisheries resulted in adding many votes to its side of the column. 



The logic, and the history of the logic, for the 3-mile limit put forward repeat- 

 edly by the United States was not successfully met then nor has it been yet. This 

 logic was simply weakened by trying for a 6-mile limit. 



The extremely vigorous efforts of Russia to get support for a 12-mile limit in 

 1958 and 1960 was without success. It was so lacking in success that Russia 

 never brought the 12-mile limit to a vote because it could not get even a blocking 

 one-third on that issue by itself. It also tried various formulations around this 

 limit to attract additional votes. Its attempts in I960 to do this resulted in less 

 votes for its proposal in that year than it got in 1958. There has been no rush of 

 nations to a 12-mile limit for the territorial sea in the intervening years since 

 1960 when so many new nations have arisen. 



There is not, and there has not been, any enthusiasm for any limit of tie 

 breadth of territorial sea between 3 and 12 miles that has, or has had, as many- 

 proponents as even has had the 12-mile Umit. 



The breadth of the territorial sea has never been agreed to among nations and 

 one sees little reason to exi)ect that it ever will be. There will always be nations 



