652 
within the American Bar Association. In the Resolution adopted by the House 
of Delegates at its August 1968 meeting, it was noted that “the boundary be- 
tween the area of exclusive sovereign rights and the deep ocean floor needs to 
be clarified by an agreed interpretation.’ The Resolution then recommended that 
such an interpretation be sought by the United States through the ‘parallel 
declarations” method or by other means, and that within the area of exclusive 
sovereign rights off its coasts the interests of the United States be protected to 
the full extent permitted by the 1958 Shelf Convention. 
In the Joint Report which accompanied this Resolution, the contention that the 
Convention definition permitted extension of national jurisdiction to mid-ocean, 
and the contention that it restricted it to the 200-meter line, were both rejected 
The better view, the Report said, was that the “exploitability” factor of the Con- 
vention was limited by the element of “adjacency.” The Report then continued: 
“According to this view, therefore, the exclusive sovereign rights of the coastal 
nations with respect to the seabed minerals now embrace the submerged land 
mass of the adjacent continent down to its junction with the deep ocean floor, 
irrespective of depth.” 
The quoted conclusion, which reflects the “‘continental margin” interpretation 
of the Convention, represented and continues to represent an opinion widely 
held among our members. 
Since the 1968 Joint Report, however, a number of our members have stated 
that this formulation did not accurately reflect their views. In the opinion of 
these members, the physical concept of “adjacency” can persuasively be con- 
strued to embrace areas to the foot of the continental margin; but the “‘exploita- 
bility”? concept in the Convention extends sovereign rights over the seabed be- 
yond the 200-meter line only as technological progress makes exploitation in that 
area possible in fact. Since exploitation techniques still cannot reach the foot of 
the continental margin, these members believe it erroneous to say that sovereign 
rights now embrace that area. To this extent they are unwilling to perpetuate 
what they regard as a misunderstanding of their position in the 1968 Joint 
Report. 
Those who take the view that sovereign rights now embrace that area answer 
that under the existing Convention on the Continental Shelf (1) the coastal 
State’s exclusive sovereign rights encompasses any exploitation on the adjoin- 
ing continental margin, whether that exploitation is effected by its national or 
by a foreigner;* (2) a change in the Convention which would retract this 
boundary of the area of the coastal State’s exclusive interest to a line which is 
landward of the submerged edge of the continent would deprive the coastal 
nation of rights now recognized in that State by the existing Convention. This 
being so, they say that it does not matter greatly (with respect to exploration 
and exploitation of seabed resources) whether the outer limit of exclusive sov- 
ereign rights of the coastal State is characterized as the boundary of rights here- 
tofore vested in the coastal nation, or the limit on Jurisdiction to be acquired 
in futuro by exploitation of successively deeper areas, since, in either event, occu- 
pation and exploitation by any other State of the area within this limit is 
prohibited. 
8. Comments and conclusions regarding a shelf limit 
In the light of the discussion above and the previous actions in the ABA which 
have been described, we submit the following comments and conclusions regarding 
the points reviewed in this section : 
(1) We reaffirm our opinion that the concept of adjacency contained in the 
present Shelf Convention should preperly 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 international conference for the purpose 
of fixing a precise boundary for the legal shelf. We believe it both preferable and 
and proper to achieve this aim through parallel declarations by interested states 
announcing a uniform interpretation of the criteria embodied in the 1958 
convention. 
13 Article 2 provides that “if the coastal State does not explore the continental shelf or 
exploit its natural resources, no one may undertake these activities, or make a claim to the 
continental shelf, without the express consent of the coastal State,” and these rights ‘“‘do 
not depend on occupation, effective national,” 
