548 



ocean claims — with regimes for ocean bottoms, a 

 delineated continental shelf, and an intermediate zone. 

 The Commission also stresses optimal use of coastlines 

 on a long-term basis in which industry, water quality, 

 and aquaculture would be regulated under Federal 

 law to guard against deterioration of the inshore 

 marine environment. A useful review of this Report, 

 including both the pros and the cons, is provided by 

 the Program of Policy Studies in Science and Techno- 

 logy (1969). 



Looking not at reports, but at budgets, produces 

 some dismay. Ocean Science News (1969) states the 

 current US Federal commitment to marine matters 

 to be $528 million per annum, of which only $150-6 

 million is in basic and applied research, $143 million 

 being in national security — and this in the very year 

 of Man's travel to the moon and continued develop- 

 ment of supersonic transport! The overall oceanic 

 budget has grown 22 per cent since 1968, when 

 Economic Associates, Inc. (1968) remarked: 'what re- 

 mains to be pointed out is the very low level of Federal 

 expenditure on . . . resources and their environment, 

 compared with Federal oceanologic programs in 

 general and, decidedly so, with the Federal effort in 

 such a field as outer space'. 



The International Biological Programme's Marine 

 Productivity section deserves mention. The IBP theme 

 of 'The biological basis of productivity and human 

 welfare' is ideally suited to the needs of Man during 

 the initial period of the Marine Revolution. However, 

 at the current level of funding (only US $7 million for 

 all US IBP sections in fiscal year 1970), it is certain 

 that IBP cannot fulfil its goals. 



Conservation and Recreation. To many, conservation 

 and recreation involve inter alia the establishment of 

 parks, sanctuaries, and control areas for research 

 (Ray, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1968; V. J. Chapman, 1968; 

 Randall, 1969). However, conservation and recreation 

 must not be confined to protected areas. Both must 

 principally be concerned with the maintenance of eco- 

 system homeostasis on a world-wide basis, and this is 

 a large order indeed. 



The concepts of conservation have been developed 

 for terrestrial environments and are only vaguely 

 applicable to the sea. The oceans together occupy 

 a vastly larger part of the biosphere than does the land, 

 and they are more continuous. The sea's rate of 

 change, its biotic complexity, and our ignorance of its 

 three-dimensional hydrosphere, are of a different order 

 of magnitude from their counterparts on the more 

 familiar land. For both land and sea, modern conser- 

 vationists have become less concerned with the placing 

 of 'fences' about sea or landscape, valuable as protec- 

 tive measures are, than with an ecological concept of 



the total ecosystem of which Man forms a part. A 

 good basis of conservation policy exists for land and, 

 in part, for inshore seas. For the high seas, this is not 

 the case. 



LEGAL REGIME OF THE SEA 



Ultimately, Man's marine activities of all kinds 

 must be legally regulated. Griffin (1967) states: 'To a 

 large extent, a period of legal conjecture is ending.' 

 The problem is '. . . to evolve policies and a legal 

 regime which will maximize all beneficial uses of ocean 

 space. . . . Under no circumstances, we believe, must 

 we ever allow the prospects of rich harvest and mineral 

 wealth to create a new form of colonial competition 

 among the maritime nations.' A contrary view is that 

 of Ely (1967a): 'Above all, we should not now cede to 

 any international agency whatsoever the power to veto 

 American exploration of areas of the deep sea which 

 are presently open to American initiative. We can 

 give away later what we now keep, but the converse is 

 sadly false.' Ely (19676, 1968) later extended these 

 views. 



Basically, the argument concerns whether the sea 

 and sea-floor are res nullius (belonging to no one but 

 subject to claim) or res communis (property of the 

 world community). 



Eichelberger (1968) puts the matter another way 

 when he says : 'Either [the sea] opens up another threat 

 of conflict or another area of cooperation.' Of course, 

 the argument is not so simple. As Friedham (1966) 

 and Belman (1968) point out, traditional law of the 

 sea is imperfect, but there is legitimate hesitancy to- 

 wards creating new modes when our experience with 

 the sea and our ignorance of its resources are both still 

 great. 



Historical Background. In 1609, Grotius wrote Mare 

 Liberum as a challenge to national jurisdiction of 

 areas of ocean. This brief for the Dutch Government 

 was directed towards breaking the Portuguese mono- 

 poly of the East Indies spice trade. Gradually, and in 

 partial response to struggles for supremacy between 

 Britain and Spain, the principle of 'freedom of the high 

 seas' was accepted. 



The concept of a territorial sea was born when 

 Bijnkershoek wrote De Domino Maris in 1702. A 

 territorial width of three nautical miles {ca 6 km) has 

 been attributed to the distance of a cannon-ball shot, 

 but the range of cannon at the time was only a single 

 nautical mile. Probably the three-mile limit began with 

 a British instruction to her Ambassadors, in 1672, that 

 control should be exercised one marine league (=3 

 nautical miles) from shore (Weber, 1966). Three 



