83 



of ships entitled to sovereign immunity in articles 31, 

 32, 90 and 236) or technical problems arising from texts 

 incorporated without negotiation from earlier treaties 

 (e.g. the removal requirement in article GO (3)). 



Throughout most of the session there was a great deal 

 of talk about referring at least some of these questions 

 to the competent Conference organ in a so-called "third 

 basket." The coordinator of the English Language Group 

 circulated a possible list of items (attached to this 

 report). However, agreement could not be reached on doing 

 this, nor could agreement be reached on a different kind 

 of list simply enumerating items still pending. 



Should this situation continue, the Conference nay 

 have to develop an alternate way of identifying, and dis- 

 posing of, questions that are technical, non-political , 

 and non-controversial. The problem is that if doing so 

 requires an essentially open-ended meeting of a substantive 

 committee, some delegations may prefer to avoid the risk 

 that such a meeting would reopen substantive matters more 

 broadly. Specific referrals from the Drafting Committee 

 could have helped avoid open-ended agendas of the substan- 

 tive committees. 



Notes on Some Recommendations or Lack Thereof. 



By their nature, drafting amendments on hundreds of 

 articles cannot be summarized. The appended Drafting 

 Committee Report is by its natura the essence of this report. 

 Several points are however of some note. 



The drafting recommendations for the English text 

 emphasize the use of the present tense rather than the , 

 imperative "shall" except where the latter is essential 

 to convey the meaning. Thus, for example, the standard 

 terminology is "nothing in this article affects...", 

 rather than "nothing in this article shall affect...". 



Except where qualified by an adjective, the term "the 

 provisions of" is generally removed. It has been retained 

 in some places for reasons of style or simply because of 

 oversight. 



For the first tine' extensive work has been done on the 

 more formidable of the lene and repetitive texts on pollution 

 (Part XII). This has resulted : n some aunplif -••Jatiw ar.J 

 lightening or the texts, par-, it ular ly in articles 211 (5) , 

 220(3) (5) and (b) , and. 22o. 



