NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 401 



possessions and, at the same time, a 9-mile limit in the Gulf of Mexico, is not 

 clear. 



On the other hand the Gulf States continue to presw for a 12-mile territorial 

 sea not because of any desire to control the superjacent water and its resource, 

 but because the Outer Continental Shelf Act of 1954 sives the States the re- 

 sources of the Continental Shelf off their coast within the territorial limits of 

 the United States. They want the oil and gas under this extra 9-mile strip of 

 bottom off their coasts, or at least the revenues therefrom. 



Aside from this, the jurisdietion over the resources of the subsoil of the 

 Continental Shelf and of at least the upper part of the continental slope ap- 

 pears to be quite clear. All of this under existing international law is subject 

 to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States vis-a-vis the rest of the world. 

 Inside this jurisdiction that part of the Continental Shelf within the territorial 

 limits of the United States is subject to the governance of the adjacent State 

 of the Union, and that outside those limits is subject to the governance of the 

 Federal Government. In either case a body of law exists for the governance 

 and this does not differ markedly from the way such resourse harvesting is 

 done ashore, respectively, under State or Federal law. A person or firm can 

 acquire title to, or can lease, land areas of definite dimensions and have exclu- 

 sive rights to the harvest of the resources under that land. 



This law stems from the Outer Continental Shelf Act of 1954. Although 

 there are little, if any, international implications in it, if a review of the effect 

 of the law of the sea is to be made it may be well to review the effect that these 

 State and Federal laws have had upon the stimulation of the harvesting of these 

 resources, and whether or not modifications in them might be required if it is 

 desired to stimulate a more rapid harvesting of these resources. 



The living resources of the high seas over the Continental Shelf, or those 

 that in the harvestable stage are mobile without being in constant physical 

 contact with the seabed or the subsoil, present a quite different, and tremendously 

 complex, series of problems. These support the major present fisheries of the 

 world. 



There is a considerable body of thought in the United States and elsewhere in 

 the world that these resources and their harvesting should be under the ex- 

 clusive jurisdiction of the adjacent nation. Argentina in 1946 clearly claimed 

 sole sovereignty over the Continental Shelf and the epicontinental sea. So have 

 some other countries rather less clearly. This is what Iceland wanted in its 

 international strivings during the 1950's. I think that a clear majority of the 

 citizens of Alaska want just this, and there is much sentiment for such a policy 

 from the coastal fishermen of other coastal States of the Union as fishermen 

 from Asia and Europe increasingly fish off the coast of North America. At 

 the 1958 Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea voting was very close as to 

 whether bottom fishes should not be considered as resources of the Continental 

 Shelf and thus be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the coastal State. It is 

 unlikely that this sentiment has lost ground in the United States or in other 

 countries in the intervening years. On the contrary, should the United States 

 wish to open this question in an international conference it is likely that a simple 

 majority of votes could be had for it although a two-thirds majority vote would 

 perhaps be not possible. 



Obviously in a general review of the law of the sea this is one matter that 

 requires major study. The difficulty is that all of the information required for 

 such a study is not available and much of what is available is so scattered 

 through the literature that its collation for study is, in itself, a major task. It 

 is to this task that Senate Joint Resolution 29 and related bills address them- 

 selves. That bill is to authorize and direct the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 

 to conduct a survey of the marine and fresh-water commercial fishery resources 

 of the United States, its territories, and possessions. It gives the Bureau until 

 January 1. 1968, to submit its report and authorizes $200,000 for the purposes 

 of this study. 



It appears to me that Senate Joint Resolution 29 is a necessary counterpart of 

 H.R. 5175 and that both are badly needed. It is impractical to evaluate the 

 legal problems of management, use and control of the natural resources of the 

 oceans and ocean beds unless we have a much better understanding of what 

 those resources are, and how they act, than we presently have. 



We have not had a general review of the fishery resources of the United States 

 since 1945 (79th Cong., 1st sess. S. Doc. No. 51, p. 135). That review was much 

 less comprehensive than the one called for by Senate Joint Resolution 29 or than 



