687 
6. “Technical progress has been made [in exploiting the resources of 
the shelf] and there are exploitations at depths of nearly 1000 
meters.” 
7. “The term ‘continental terrace’ is understood to be that part of 
the submerged land mass that forms the shelf and the slope.” 
From the foregoing points the Committee concluded: 
“The American States are especially interested in utilizing and 
conserving the existing natural resources on the American terrace 
(shelf and slope).” (Words in parentheses appear that way in 
original. ) 
And: 
“The utilization of the resources of the shelf cannot be technically 
limited, and for this reason the exploitation of the continental 
terrace should be included as a possibility in the declaration of 
rights of the American States.” 
The Conference * unanimously adopted a Resolution (Document 
95) which reads: 
“1. The sea-bed and subsoil of the continental shelf, continental 
and insular terrace, or other submarine areas, adjacent to the 
coastal state, outside the area of the territorial sea, and to a depth 
of 200 metres or, beyond that limit, to where the depth of the 
superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural 
resources of the sea-bed and subsoil, appertain exclusively to that 
state and are subject to its jurisdiction and control.” 
At the 1958 Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea, the fourth 
Committee considered the draft articles on the Continental Shelf. In 
commenting on the definition, particularly the exploitation test, the 
spokesman for the United States delegation (Miss Whiteman) observed 
that (p. 40): 
“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.” (Emphasis added.) 
This expression of understanding of the definition by the United 
States made during the course of the debates, together with the fact 
that the United States had shortly prior thereto joined in the Ciudad 
Trujillo resolution of March 28, 1956, proclaiming that “the continental 
shelf, continental and insular terrace” appertain to the coastal nation, 
* Twenty nations including the United States participated in this Conference. 
