567 
But why put in the chain or process a U.S. Government bureau? And why 
(other than to swell the bureaucracy) would such government department want 
to assume the responsibility of filing mining claims on behalf of U.S. companies? 
This introduces an entirely unnecessary step in the process, and might very well 
be susceptible to political abuse, or equally bad, be suspected of being politically 
abused. 
If licensing instead of simple claim registry on a time-priority basis is used, we 
have two places, the national government and the international agency, where 
discretion and authority may be abused or suspected of being abused. 
9. Since this Declaration of Principles is to be introduced in the Committee at 
the United Nations, it perhaps appears logical that the licensing authority, or 
the international claim registry as many would prefer, would be “designated 
by the United Nations.” However, this licensing authority to be designated by 
the United Nations should be clearly an agency independent of the United Nations 
after it is created, e.g., the parallel of the World Bank. The composition and 
authority of this independent agency must be spelled out and agreed upon before 
it will become acceptable to a great many nations—possibly including our own. 
Let me turn now to Article 4 of Part III, which spells out how licenses are 
to be issued and on what considerations. 
1. This whole provision illustrates the undesirability of having a licensing 
authority in contrast to a simple claim registry as recommended by the Presi- 
dent’s Commission. When an office is to issue a license, in contrast to filing a 
claim, it must have certain criteria on which to issue the license. These criteria 
must be simple of application, beyond dispute, and not subject to abuse or pos- 
sible corruption. It is difficult to prescribe such criteria and even more difficult 
to administer them fairly afterwards, as we see by the very simplest kind of 
licenses, for example, for a liquor store or a taxicab in New York City. 
2. By illustration, the requirement of Article 4 that the licensing authority 
“shall give due consideration to the potential impact on the world market for 
each resource to be extracted or produced under such license,” has the poten- 
tiality of setting up an international cartel in any given natural resource, beyond 
the power of the Antitrust Division of our Department of Justice to do anything 
about. This would require the licensing authority to judge between the needs 
of consumers for supply available at the very lowest price and the needs of the 
producers to make a “fair” return on their investment. This is the kind of 
regulation which is difficult to apply even on one product like electricity, much 
less on the raw material resources of the world. It will be quite a job for any 
licensing authority. 
3. It is really difficult for any regulatory agency to regulate and license (a) 
intelligently, (b) without political bias—and here we would have an inter- 
national political bias interjected—and (c) without corruption. Given complete 
honesty, great intelligence, the good will of all nations, this international licens- 
ing authority is really being asked to do an enormous job. 
4, It is an enormous job which is not necessary to be done. An international 
claim registry system, as recommended by the President’s Commission, could 
apply the same specific criteria which are listed under Article 4 with far better 
results, and with far less chance of being subjected to international criticism 
from all sides. 
5. The validity of the criticism just made of the first part of Article 4 of Part 
III on the licensing criteria is substantiated by the fact that, if two or more 
States apply for a license for the same ocean space, there are no criteria (except 
to benefit developing States) set forth whereby the licensing authority shall 
determine which State shall receive the license. The licensing authority must 
have clear criteria given to guide it, otherwise it is subject to criticism no 
matter what it decides. The simplest criteria, of course, would be on the basis 
of priority in the time filed. This is customarily the basis on which mining 
claims are governed, and the basis which the President’s Commission recom- 
mended be taken in their international claim registry, subject, of course, to 
the applicant being responsible. The provision in Article 4(b) as now written 
is an open invitation to “claim jumping” problems on an international scale. 
Going further to Article 4(c), this states: “A coastal State has a special 
interest in the conservation of the natural resources of the seabed and subsoil 
of ocean space adjacent to its territorial sea and continental shelf... .” Exactly 
what follows from this “special interest” and in what way would this “be taken 
into account by the Jicensing authority”? Would this give applicants under the 
flag of the coastal State a priority in getting a license ahead of some other 
applicant which had applied first or had other superior qualifications? What is 
