589 
and they are not the same, as I understand them—would be good for 
us, it would be good for everybody, and we don’t have to bargain away 
any interests of the United States or its own continental margin to 
secure the acquiescence of other countries in a new deep sea regime that 
is said to be good for all nations. 
I would look upon the deep sea regime as a problem quite separate 
from whether or not we should give up a portion of the area now 
within our national jurisdiction. We know that it extends now beyond 
200 meters, and beyond 550 meters of depth and beyond 30 miles or 50 
miles of linear distance from shore. 
When it comes to structuring the deep sea regime the Commission 
recommends that an organization be created in which shall be lodged 
power to register claims by nations to specific segments of the seabed, 
on a basis of first-in-time, first-in-right. Each nation would then de- 
velop that area under its own laws and subject to diligent requre- 
ments, which, if not met, might forfeit the claim. 
In the alternative, other schemes have been brought forward. 
Mr. Lennon. How does the American Bar Association feel about 
that special recommendation that you just referred to? 
Mr. Ety. The feeling of our sections in general is that this is on the 
right track, that the RES objective might very well be a registra- 
tion scheme for national claims as distinguished from the creation of 
a supersovereignty with power to deny seabed concessions, or grant 
them on bargaining terms. 
Mr. Lennon. Right at that point, how does the American Petroleum 
Institute feel on this particular point with respect to an international 
organization such as the United Nations controlling certain areas of 
our seabed for the use or exploitation for the benefit of undeveloped 
nations ? 
Mr. Ey. You are speaking of the National Petroleum Council ? 
Mr. Lennon. Yes. 
Mr. Exy. Although I don’t appear for the National Petroleum 
Council, I did serve on the subcommittee of the National Petroleum 
Council’s Committee on Petroleum Resources Under the Ocean Floor, 
by invitation. I believe it is fair to say that the National Petroleum 
Conte did not favor the creation of a supersovereignty with the 
power to grant or deny concessions. I believe it fair to say that it, too, 
looked toward a registry scheme as the ultimate pattern that should be 
encouraged. 
For the record, this is how the National Petroleum Council Report 
summarized the Council’s position on the two questions of the extent of 
national jurisdiction, and the regime seaward of national jurisdiction 
(pp. 10, 11, 12) : 
In construing the language of this Convention, the National Petroleum Council 
concludes that the ultimate jurisdiction of the coastal nation with respect to 
mineral resources under the ocean floor clearly extends by virtue of the exploita- 
bility and adjacency criteria outward to encompass the submerged continent 
down to its junction with the abyssal ocean floor. The Convention’s criterion of 
adjacency is a limitation upon the exploitability criterion which serves to exclude 
the abyssal ocean floor from the exclusive resource jurisdiction of the coastal 
nation, regardless of how exploitable the deposits seaward of the continental 
block might become. The drafters of the Convention also specifically intended, 
in fairness to the nations concerned, and used language sufficiently broad to pro- 
vide that, where the continent drops abruptly to the abyssal ocean floor, their 
natural resource jurisdiction extends to the nearby portions of the deep ocean to 
