39 



Mrs. Fenwick. On page 7 you just spoke briefly about navigation. 

 Could you tell us about the freedom of the seas and what has been 

 guaranteed there, if anything? What are the conditions? 



Mr. Richardson. I would be glad to, Mrs. Fenwick. 



The provisions on this subject have not changed since 1977 when 

 we had very difficult negotiations with respect to navigation and 

 overflight in the 200-mile economic zone and nailed down the final 

 provisions for freedom of passage and overflight through archipela- 

 gos. 



So what we have in effect is a regime under this treaty that does 

 guarantee these freedoms for the passage of straits as well as 

 movement outside the 12-mile territorial sea and through sealanes 

 that would be established pursuant to the treaty through the 

 waters enclosed by archipelagos. 



Mrs. Fenwick. Are the straits specifically named? 



Mr. Richardson. Oh, yes. Indeed, to go back and give you a 

 historic footnote on this, the first U.N. conference in 1958 dealt 

 with the question of extension of the territorial sea but reached no 

 conclusion. 



Another conference in 1960 dealt particularly with the territorial 

 sea and the passage of straits because to extend the territorial sea 

 from 3 to 12 miles could result in overlapping of something like 120 

 straits by territorial waters. 



That would, under traditional principles of international law, 

 mean there was no right to transit such a strait by submarine 

 traveling submerged and no right of overflight at all. 



So it was a central objective of the United States, as well as 

 other maritime countries, from 1960 onward, to assure that the 

 extension of the territorial sea would be coupled with the guaran- 

 tee of freedom of transited straits. 



We have here a curious phenomenon. When I was Under Secre- 

 tary of State, a job they now call Deputy Secretary of State, in 1970 

 the paramount and overriding U.S. interest in the negotiation of a 

 comprehensive treaty was the politico-military interest in freedom 

 of navigation and overflight; second came oil and gas; third, fisher- 

 ies; and seabed mining was a distant fourth. 



We have fully and adequately protected U.S. interests in the first 

 three of these, starting with navigation. It is one of those what- 

 have-you-done-for-me-lately phenomena. Personnel in the Depart- 

 ment of Defense who were able, with the help of some of us in the 

 State Department, to get Defense Department interests recognized 

 in ways that completely overrode other departments are now gone, 

 and the whole thing has been turned upside down so that arguable 

 defects in the seabed mining regime have come to dominate all 

 approaches to this subject. But the fact is that the navigational 

 interests have long been satisfactorily met by this text, subject to 

 quibbles over interpretation which in fact are not the subject of 

 any disagreement in the conference. 



I have repeatedly, for example, in various publications and con- 

 versations with colleagues stated the U.S. understanding of this 

 language, and no question has ever been raised about it. 



Mrs. Fenwick. On the last page of your testimony you speak of, 

 "Such a treaty would, therefore, better serve the national interest 



