156 



question of whether or not the current navigation texts are 



satisfactory is to be answered in the review. 



29. It appears that control of deep sea mining is 

 turning out to be the biggest stumbling block of the entire 

 conference. The developing countries seem to believe tht 

 they can participate in the development of undersea resources 

 only through an International Seabed Authority and its Enter- 

 prise or its forced joint ventures with captive private 

 companies. Moreover, they propose that the business arm of 

 the authority, called the "Enterprise," ultimately undertake 

 all exploration and exploitation of the deep sea. Obviously, 

 such a Third World position is completely unacceptable to the 

 U.S. and other industrialized countries. 



... Given the fact of life, what are the Third World 

 nations doing to reach a compromise in this area of negotiations 

 that our own private companies would be willing to live with? 



A. Until recently, the developing countries were justified 



in believing that the United States and other Western nations 



would eventually sign a treaty along the lines of the current 



text. There, therefore, was no incentive for them to make any 



fundamental concessions. They concentrated instead on making 



the text as advantageous to them as possible. The possibility 



now exists, that the United States will decide not to sign a 



seabed mining text as disadvantageous to our economic, political 



and security interests as the current one, and will instead 



press for substantial changes in the text that will require 



the developing states to make what they will perceive as 



concessions. If this occurs, it will indeed be interesting 



to see just how far the developing states will be willing to 



go to accommodate our needs. Of course, there remains the 



option of abandoning the treaty. 



