^STATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 403 



The qualifying adjective "adjacent" in the preceding clause of the definition 

 would argue against such a determination, especially in view of the fact that 

 these great deposits are found in midocean far removed from adjacent Continental 

 Shelves, as well as closer to shore. Certainly the negotiators at Geneva had no 

 such interpretation, or development, in mind, as a reading of the pertinent 

 debates clearly shows. 



Is it necessary for a property right to be vested in a harvester of such resources 

 in order to encourage him to harvest? 



These mineral resources are so vast and cover such enormous areas that it is 

 mot at once apparent why a firm would rather have rights of exploitation to one 

 million-acre patch of bottom over that of some hundreds or thousands of other 

 million-acre patches, nor is it apparent what extra inducement to harvesting sole 

 rights of exploitation to a very large piece of ocean bottom would be. 



If a property right, or an exclusive harvesting right, is good public policy what 

 governing entity would grant it? 



The political turmoil probably attendant to splitting up the ocean bottom as 

 to sovereignty an.ongst any group of nations, or the whole lot of them seems to me 

 to make this whole approach impracticable, especially while the nations are still 

 making war over sovereignty contests respecting that 29 percent of the earth's 

 surface which is dry land. 



It has been seriously proposed by individuals from time to time that ownership 

 in all resources of the high seas and the deep sea bed be vested in the United 

 JSfations not only as a means of assuring appropriate governance, but by giving it 

 ability to charge rent for their uses securing the partial financial independence of 

 the United Nations. 



Would this be practical? Would it be good public policy for the United States 

 or for other nations ? Could the United Nations actually be reshaped to govern 

 70 percent of the earth's surface even partially? Would it be good public policy 

 for the United Nations to be financially independent? Would such treatment 

 actually speed up making these resources available for the use of mankind? 



{6) The far-ranging fishes 



Fish are perhaps the most vexatious subject with, which students and prac- 

 titioners of the law of the sea have to deal. This has always been the case since 

 there has been what could be called a law of the sea, and it is perhaps more the 

 case today than ever before in a history. Furthermore no easy answers to the 

 fishery problems appear in the horizon. The more we learn about fish, fisheries, 

 .and the ocean the more complex and numerous the problems seem to become, and 

 the less tractable the solution. 



The effect of changing spawning locations of the herring in the North Sea and 

 ^Baltic Sea on the composition and strength of the Hanseatic League cities in the 

 15th and 16th century is well known. The Dutch and English wars of the 17th 

 century over the same general subject have been made much of. But I doubt that 

 there has been a decade since that time when the vessels of one country have not 

 fired on those of another country over a fishery dispute. 



The basic difficulty is that commercially important fish of a great many kinds 

 engage in very long migrations which are essential to their life history. Some 

 anention has been made before of the transoceanic migrations of salmon and 

 different kinds of tuna. These are not exceptionaL Herring, cod, mackerels, 

 whales, eels, fur seals, halibut, ling-cod, saury, shark, black-cod, and a good many 

 other kinds of fishes are known to regularly migrate over distances of not only 

 hundreds, but of thousands of miles. The more tagging experiments are carried 

 -out the more kinds of fish are found to engage in long migrations. These are vital 

 to the life of the species in ways that cannot be successfully modified as yet by 

 man. If the fresh water eel or the penaeid shrimp cannot get out to sea to spawn 

 the species will die ; there is no way to kill off a salmon run so quickly and so 

 eflaciently as to build a dam across the river so the salmon cannot come out of the 

 sea and go upstream (often a thousand miles upstream) to spawn where it was 

 hatched. These are only glaring and important examples from dozens more 

 that could be cited. 



These migrations fall into no regular pattern which would permit a splitting 

 up of the ocean into regions, or even quite big pieces, so that a group or nations 

 could band together and huband all the species \vell in the area. There is little 

 evidence of much desire by groups of nations to act together in this manner even 

 if it were naturally practical. 



There is an International Commission for the North Pacific Fisheries which is 

 •one of the most ambitious in area of the intergovernmental fishery commissions 



