461 



STATEMENT OF JOHN E. STEVENSON, LEGAL ADVISER, 

 DEPARTMENT OF STATE 



Mr. Stevenson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am John 

 Stevenson, the legal adviser of the State Department. 



Mr. Chairman, committee members : I appreciate this opportunity 

 to meet with you to testify in support of the President's proposal to 

 control ocean dumping. I would like to discuss with the committee the 

 jurisdictional aspects of the Marine Protection Act of 1971, H.R. 4247 

 and H.R, 4723, and the international efforts of the administration to 

 pi'otect the marine environment. 



The proposed Marine Protection Act of 1971 has been carefully 

 drafted to maximize U.S. control over ocean dumping activities con- 

 sistent with accepted principles of international law. In this connec- 

 tion, I wish to note the fact that to our knowledge all dumping off 

 our coasts at present originates from the United States and that we 

 have no reason to believe the situation will change. I would like to 

 briefly discuss the relevant principles of international law on which the 

 President's ocean dumping proposal is based. 



Traditionally, the law of the sea has been faced with two funda- 

 mental problems — defining the extent of coastal state jurisdiction over 

 the ocean and accommodating conflicting uses of the high seas. Al- 

 though we continue to work on several aspects of these problems, great 

 advances were made in 1958 with the adoption of the four Geneva 

 Law of the Sea Conventions. These conventions codified the existing 

 international law of the sea and established several important new 

 international legal principles. These conventions, to which we and 

 many other nations are parties, establish the present legal basis for 

 coastal state control of ocean activities. 



The Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone 

 provides in its first article that the sovereignty of a coastal state ex- 

 tends beyond its land territory to its territorial sea. With the exception 

 of the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea, the United 

 States under this convention and customary international law enjoys 

 complete control over all activities in our 3-mile territorial sea. 



Furthermore, this convention provides that a coastal state in a zone 

 of the high seas contiguous to its territorial sea may exercise control 

 necessary to prevent the infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigra- 

 tion, or sanitary regulations within its territory or territorial sea. The 

 convention specifies that this contiguous zone may not extend beyond 

 12 miles from the coast. Thus, within the contiguous zone, the United 

 States can enact measures to prevent unlawful pollution of its terri- 

 tory or territorial sea. It is important to bear in mind that the U.S.. 

 authority under the convention does not derive from a right to pre- 

 vent pollution of the contiguous zone as such, but from a right to pre- 

 vent pollution of our territory or territorial sea. 



A State, of course, has jurisdiction over vessels flying its flag on 

 the high seas irrespective of their location. A state may also determine 

 the conditions under which materials may be removed from its terri- 

 tory, and specifically has the power to prohibit such removal by its 

 own or foreign nationals and vessels. But, beyond 12 miles, a state has 



