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6. Living Resources Competition.—Most of the actual, as contrasted with the 
fanciful or future, interaction among nations over the use of the ocean arises 
from friction among them and their citizens over the harvesting of living 
resources from the sea. This has been the case for the past three hundred years 
and more, and is likely to be for the next three hundred years. 
The old and long term problem initiating fishery disputes is competition for 
the use of the resource in the high seas. No general formula has been capable 
of being devised yet to settle this major cause of friction among nations and it 
is unlikely that one will be so long as human beings remain what they are and 
are governed by human sovereigns. The basic causes are cupidity, mistrust, and 
jealousy. The lack of general formulation to solve this problem is not for lack 
of trying. More diplomatic effort has been put into the attempt over the years 
than into most international activities. No such formula could be devised at the 
1958 and 1960 conferences on the Law of the Sea, for instance, and in the end 
the success of those two conferences turned on that aspect. 
The only saisfactory way to settle a fishery dispute of this nature is for 
the nations whose citizens are involved to negotiate out an agreement, or agree 
to have this done for them by an arbitral tribunal or the International Court of 
Justice. All of these systems have been successfully employed in the recent past. 
The numerous fishery agreements (33) negotiated annually or frequently 
among Russia, United States, Canada, Poland, Japan, Australia, Norway, Iceland, 
England, etc., in different combinations, are proof that the system is a useful 
one, aS are the several major arbitrations of the 19th century, and the Anglo- 
Norwegian Fishery Case before the International Court of Justice after World 
War II. 
As an example of why this works the following anecdote is related. I met 
a Russian colleague of mine in Rome a year or so ago and congratulated hira 
on the successful negotiations recently completed between U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. 
over the fishery for king crab in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. He smiled wryly, 
and said as follows: 
“Before leaving for Washington the Russian delegation was called in to be 
personally instructed by Mr. Kosygin. Mr. Kosygin said he wanted us to 
understand that if and when Russia went to war with the United States it would 
not be over crabs”. 
Until sovereign national governments, or the high seas, are done away with 
there is unlikely to be any way to prevent disputes among them over fisheries 
lying in the high seas. The disputes will require to be settled by peaceful means 
or by force. 
7. Living Resource Conservation.—The Conservation of Living Resources is 
a different matter. It is agreed among the nations that “conservation of the 
living resources of the high seas” means the aggregate of the measures render- 
ing possible the optimum sustainable yield from those resources so as to secure 
a maximum supply of food and other marine products; and that all nations have 
the duty to adopt, or to cooperate with other nations in adopting, such measures 
for their respective nationals as may be necessary for the conservation of the 
living resources of the high seas (33). That convention goes on to provide a 
suitable international mechanism for the settlement of disputes arising out of 
fishery conservation problems. It is in force. Furthermore its principles are in 
use even as among nations which for one reason or another have not yet ratified 
it (as for instance the Russian-Japanese fishery arrangements in the Northwest 
Pacific). 
There is a wide variety among the twenty-three international fishery bodies 
and commissions currently dealing with fishery conservation problems in the 
world, and a body of experience in such matters extending over the past sixty 
years (34). I suggest that in this body of experience and practice are examples 
that will be more practically useful among nations dealing with joint problems 
arising from harvesting the minerals of the deep-seabed than in any formulation 
put forward in the Pell, Dantzig, Hichelberger, Borghese, and Auerbach papers. 
SUMMARY 
In my view the people who have seized upon the ocean as a vehicle for reform- 
ing the social, economic and diplomatic conduct of the human race have done, 
and are doing, great damage to the cause of improving the use of the ocean as 
a means for bettering mankind. 
They have held forth, to the poor nations, and the uninformed, promises of 
great wealth from the ocean that does not exist. The expensive international 
