STATEMENT ON CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE MInING Riauts BY DEEPSEA VENTURES, INC.’ 
The Department of State received on November 15, 1974, a letter from Mr. 
John EH. Flipse, President of Deepsea Ventures, Inc., described as a “Notice of 
Discovery and Claim of Exclusive Mining Rights and Request for Diplomatic 
Protection and Protection of Investment, by Deepsea Ventures, Inc.” This claim 
identifies an area in the eastern Pacific Ocean that is beyond the national jurisdic- 
tion of any state and asserts that Deepsea Ventures, Inc. “has discovered and 
taken possession of, and is now engaged in developing and evaluating, as the 
first stages of mining a deposit of seabed manganese nodules.” Deepsea Ventures 
asserts the exclusive rights to develop, evaluate and mine the deposit and to 
take, use and sell all of the manganese nodules in, and the minerals and metals 
derived therefrom. 
The Department of State does not grant or recognize exclusive mining rights 
to the mineral resources of an area of the seabed beyond the limits of national 
jurisdiction. 
The appropriate means for the development of the law of the sea is the Third 
United Nations Conference on Law of the Sea and not unilateral claims. The 
United States supports the achievement of a widely acceptable and comprehensive 
law of the sea treaty in 1975 that would include a regime and machinery for the 
exploration for and exploitation of the mineral resources of the deep seabed 
beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. 
The position. of the United States Government on deep ocean mining pend- 
ing the outcome of the Law of the Sea Conference is that the mining of the 
seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction may proceed as a freedom of the 
high seas under existing international law. 
1 Statement made available by the U.S. Department of State. Reproduced from the text 
provided by the U.S. Department of State. This statement was made available following 
the filing of the Notice with the U.S. Secretary of State, as a guidance paper for response 
to press inquiries. 
(203) 
O 
