42 



Achieving Law of the Sea Gains. The current Law of the Sea proposal contains 

 several positive aspects with regard to protection of navigation rights through 

 international straits, setting territorial limits of 12 miles, establishing economic 

 zones to 200 miles. . . _ . 



Additionally, the treaty provides for a cooperative international fisheries regime 

 aimed at safeguarding and conserving migratory and endangered species as well as 

 providing protection for marine mammals and other components of the fragile 

 marine environment. 



The above benefits can be equally obtained through bilateral relationships with 

 the affected nations who are negotiating specific agreements through the U.N. 

 General Assembly or existing organizations such as the U.N. Environmental Pro- 

 gram, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Intergovernmental 

 Marine Consulting Organization, to name just a few. 



The base approval of the treaty on fears of losing a few good benefits while 

 accepting a number of potentially harmful provisions would be ill-advised and 

 possibly worse than no treaty at all. 



If worse comes to worst and we see August lead off into nothing, 

 Mr. Secretary, would you recommend a positive approach here to 

 trying to save all the best parts of the treaty through the approach 

 analyzed here in this Heritage Foundation background paper. 



Mr. Richardson. I couldn't honestly do that. The American Heri- 

 tage background paper is demonstrably wrong on a number of 

 points, indeed, ill-informed. Take, for example, the reference to the 

 Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization Conven- 

 tions. One of the reasons why this treaty is so important from an 

 environmental point of view is that it makes binding on all 

 member states the internationally established standards which 

 emanate from IMCO. 



There is no way in which more than a relatively small number of 

 countries can be induced to ratify IMCO Convention. None has 

 ever been ratified by more than a relatively small number of 

 countries. 



This document, as I explained at length in an article in Oceans 

 magazine, greatly extends the reach of IMCO's standards for design 

 of tankers, for discharge standards, or toxic substances, by incorpo- 

 rating in effect by reference the standards established by IMCO 

 and making them binding on a number of countries which will be 

 much larger because of the array of inducements to join that are 

 held out by this document. 



With respect to the straits, I think it would be an exceedingly 

 shortsighted and ill-advised policy to undertake to negotiate bi- 

 laterally with groups of straits countries, as in the case of the 

 Strait of Malacca, deals for the transit of U.S. ships. 



We would, in effect, be confessing that these states control straits 

 passage. We would be forced into bidding for such rights against 

 the Soviet Union or other countries, and we would be subject to the 

 cancellation of these rights as the result of a change of regime. 



I cannot imagine a representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

 endorsing such a course. The evidence of it is a fundamental reason 

 why from the outset the Defense Department has been the driving 

 force behind the U.S. effort to get this treaty. 



There are other references there with respect to the breadth of 

 the territorial sea. Again, one of the reasons why these negotia- 

 tions were initiated was in order to halt the process referred to as 

 "creeping jurisdiction" under which states were claiming 12-mile, 

 24-mile, 80-mile and, 200-mile territorial seas. 



