30 



Again, take the allegation that liberation movements like the 

 PLO would be eligible for a share of the net revenues of the Seabed 

 Authority. Although, as noted above, we have in fact secured effec- 

 tive means of preventing such an outcome, this, too, is a result that 

 could be reinforced, if not in the text, at least in the official record 

 at the final stage of the Conference. 



Not all criticisms of the draft convention are distortions, of 

 course. The Interdepartmental Group on the Law of the Sea had 

 already targeted a number of needed improvements even before 

 this administration's review was announced. The IG proposals 

 would have addressed most of the concerns identified by Assistant 

 Secretary Malone when he testified on April 29 before the Subcom- 

 mittee on Oceanography of the House Merchant Marine and Fish- 

 eries Committee. 



The most important of these proposals — and concerns — was the 

 protection of investments made prior to the draft convention's 

 entry into force. Other such matters were the transfer of technol- 

 ogy owned by subcontractors, the "Brazil clause," the number of 

 ratifications required for the entry into force of amendments ema- 

 nating from the Review Conference, and the exemption of net 

 importers from sharing the revenue from the exploitation of hydro- 

 carbons in the Continental Shelf beyond the 200-mile limit. 



Although not on either Mr. Malone's or the IG's list, other 

 desirable changes which the Conference would undoubtedly agree 

 to put on its agenda would be a clause more positively encouraging 

 the exploitation of seabed resources and a fixed date for the star- 

 tup of the production-ceiling formula. 



Mr. Malone also referred to the burden imposed on seabed 

 mining corporations by the convention's review-sharing provisions, 

 but this is a concern which should, in all fairness, be dealt with 

 under domestic law. All that is necessary is to give revenue-sharing 

 payments to the Authority the same treatment as taxes paid to a 

 foreign government. Indeed, this has all along been advocated by 

 the State Department. If this were done the present revenue-shar- 

 ing provisions are likely to be acceptable to U.S. mining companies. 



In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I want once again to emphasize 

 that the treaty, as thus improved, would bring substantial benefits 

 to the United States. This is widely acknowledged — indeed, I 

 should say, except for fringe elements, not disputed at all — in the 

 case of freedom of navigation and overflight, environmental protec- 

 tion, conservation of living resources including marine mammals, 

 oil and gas exploitation, telecommunications, conflict prevention, 

 and dispute settlement. 



Most members of the scientific community agree that marine 

 scientific research would be better off under the treaty than with- 

 out it. And even the seabed mining industry recognizes that a 

 treaty improved in realistically possible ways is the preferable 

 means of obtaining rights good against all the world to carry out 

 deep seabed mining operations in defined areas of the ocean 

 bottom. Such a treaty would, therefore, better serve the national 

 interest in access to strategic minerals than a vulnerable reciprocal 

 regime to which only a handful of industrial countries belonged. 



