82 



To cite one example, most of the rererences to coastal 

 states in the Spanish text are in the plural; in the 

 French text, many arc in the singular. Any effort to 

 achieve stylistic consistency in the English text on this 

 kind of question was doomed to failure. 



A very large percentage of the changes recommended by 

 the Committee affect the Arabic, French and Spanish texts 

 only. In essence, the respective language groups have 

 been redcing what Secretariat personnel had been compelled 

 to do on short notice when texts were originally issued. 

 The Arabic Language Group faces the additional problem that 

 earlier instruments on the Law of the Sea did not have 

 official Arabic versions. 



In order to ensure that the consideration of crafting 

 changes not give rise to substantive implications or inter- 

 pretive records, the Committee and its organs have followed 

 the practice of avoiding records of discussion of drafting 

 changes and the reasons therefor. 



Working atmosphere. 



The atmosphere was highly professional and workmanlike 

 throughout the seven weeks. There were few occasions on 

 which the political or substantive differences between 

 participating states or groups of states affected the work. • 

 The intense schedule created fatigue and strain but sur- 

 prisingly little friction. While problems arose from time 

 to time regarding the potentially substantive implications 

 of a particular change, and while certain changes were 

 rejected because one or more participants felt they night 

 alter the substance, it appears that most, if not all, of 

 the participants limited their proposals to drafting 

 suggestions very narrowly defined. * 



Mixed questions of Drafting and Substance. 



The Drafting Committee has yet to find a technique for 

 dealing with, or even indicating that it has identified, a 

 technical problem in the text whose resolution may have 

 substantive, albiet non-controversial, implications. Its 

 efforts on harmonization of terminology have already been 

 hampered by this difficulty. At this meeting, the- Cc.TuT.ittee 

 was again unable to make' recommendations on, or ev;i refer 

 to the continuing problems associated with the use of 

 different words or phrases to deal with the same question 

 in different parts of the Convention (e.g. the description 



