629 
is essential for the exercise of the rights of the coastal State 
as defined in these articles. . . . Again, exploitation of a sub- 
marine area at a depth exceeding 200 metres is not contrary to 
the present rules, merely because the area is not a continental 
shelf in the geological sense,""—-’ (Emphasis added. ) 
6. 
The United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea convened in 
Geneva in February 1958 to consider the recommendations of the Inter- 
national Law Commission. Representatives of 82 nations attended. The 
conference separated out the Commission's articles into four conventions, 
one on the High Seas, another on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, 
another on the Living Resources of the Sea, and the Convention on the Con- 
tinental Shelf. 
In support of the language recommended by the Commission, with 
respect to coastal nations' jurisdiction beyond the 200 metre isobath, a 
member of the American delegation told the Conference: 
"The definition of the rights of the coastal State to the 
continental shelf and continental slope adjacent to the mainland 
proposed by the International Law Commission would benefit 
individual States and the whole of mankind. 112/( Emphasis added. ) 
The Conference approved the recommended language of Article 67 
of the Commission draft, as Article 1 of the Convention on the Continental 
Shelf, after eliminating the parenthetical reference to 100 fathoms as 
equivalent to 200 metres, and adding language making the convention ap- 
plicable to submarine areas adjacent to the coasts of islands. 
In one of the final acts of the Conference, in plenary session, a 
motion was made to cut coastal jurisdiction back to the 200 metre isobath, 
‘as recommended by the Commission in 1953. It was rejected by the Con - 
ay) ILC Yearbook (1956), Vol.II, p. 297. 
12/ Official Records of the U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea, Vol. 
VI: Fourth Committee, U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/42 (1958), p. 40. 
