88 
degree of authority in a United Nations body controlled by nations 
whose interests are frequently opposed to our own. 
Unitrep Nations ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONS 
United Nations involvement in the deep seabed has included direct 
funding for nodule surveys and sponsoring conferences on the Law of 
the Sea to establish an international legal framework for deep ocean 
exploitation. 
NODULE SURVEYS 
The United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far 
Kast (ECAFE), through its Committee for Coordination of Joint 
Prospecting for Mineral Resources in South Pacific Offshore Areas, 
is funding two nodule survey projects. These are in the vicinity of 
Tonga, Western Samoa, and Fiji who are interested in locating com- 
mercial nodule deposits near their shores.® 
FIRST AND SECOND LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCES 
Four Conventions on the Law of the Sea were signed in Geneva in 
1958 to codify international agreements regarding ocean space and 
national rights. A second conference was convened in 1960, but no 
additional agreements were reached. Consequently, these conferences 
and the resulting conventions left unresolved a number of questions 
and issues. One issue that was not resolved was the breadth of the 
territorial sea. Another related issue concerned the preferential rights 
of coastal states to the resources of the sea and deep seabed immediately 
beyond their territorial limit. The Convention on the Continental 
Shelf left open the area subject to a future international regime by 
incorporating an ambiguous definition of the continental shelf. The 
continental shelf was defined as “the seabed and subsoil of the sub- 
marine areas adjacent to the coast but outside the area of the territorial 
sea, to a depth of 200 meters or, beyond that limit, to where the depth 
of the superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural 
resources of the said areas.” 1° As technology pushed exploitability 
to greater and greater depths, the elasticity clause become more signifi- 
cant. However most authorities agree there is some point at which the 
seabed is beyond national jurisdiction. Debate mainly revolves around 
the concepts of whether the deep sea resources are nobody’s property 
(res nullius), and therefore in principle subject to national appropria- 
tion, or everybody’s property (7es communis) and therefore not sub- 
ject to any individual nation’s appropriation or sovereignty. 
On August 17, 1967, the Permanent Mission of Malta to the United 
Nations submitted a proposal urging that the resource wealth of the 
oceans be regarded as the “common heritage of mankind” to be used 
for the benefit, and in the interest, of mankind particularly developing 
nations. While the United States supported the U.N. resolution to 
this effect, statements by the U.S. State Department representatives 
have cautioned that “common heritage” does not mean “common 
property.” 1 
2 ECAFE, op. cit., pp. 33-38. 
1015 U.S.T. at 473, T.T.A.S. No. 5578, 499 U.N.T.S. at 312. 
11 U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, “Law of the Sea.”’ Hearing before the 
Subcommittee on Oceans and Atmosnvhere. 992d Cong., 2d sess. Oct. 3, 1972. Washington, 
D.C. : U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1972, p. 8. 
