602 
"Importance of the 1958 Convention to the United States 
"If the minerals underlying the seabed adjacent to our coasts 
remain under American control, as they now are under the Continental 
Shelf Convention as we construe it, they continue to be resources avail- 
able for national defense, essential components ef the American LORE p 
and important elements of the federal and state tax base. 
"We do not believe that it is in the interests of the United States 
that negotiations for the creation of an international regime to govern 
mineral development of the ocean floor should proceed on the assump- 
tion that this new regime will have authority to take over the adminis- 
tration of, or the governmental revenues derived from, the develop- 
ment of the minerals of any part of the submerged segments of the 
American continent. 
"In our opinion, the United States should stand on its rights 
under the Convention as heretofore ratified. 
"If legal uncertainties are believed to constitute an impediment 
‘to utilization of undersea mineral resources, such uncertainties can 
be eliminated by uniform declarations of the coastal nations which are 
parties to the Convention on the Continental Shelf, identifying their 
claims of jurisdiction with the submerged portion of the continental 
land mass, and reciprocally restricting their claims accordingly. No 
new conference to amend the Continental Shelf Convention is necessary 
to accomplish this." 
1969 Draft Report 
The draft 1969 Joint Report, after reviewing the arguments for a "nar- 
row shelf" versus those for a "broad shelf, '' arrives at these conclusions: 
"(1) We reaffirm our opinion that the concept of adjacency con- 
tained in the present Shelf Convention should properly be interpreted 
to include the submerged continental land mass. In the view widely 
held among our members, all of the submerged continental land mass 
is subject to national.jurisdiction over its natural resources. In the 
view of a significant number of our members any part of this land 
mass will come within national jurisdiction as soon as it becomes 
accessible to exploitation. 
"(2) We reaffirm our opinion that it would not be desirable, 
in terms of overall United States interests, to seek a formal inter- 
national conference for the purpose of fixing a precise boundary for 
