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5. Recommendation that “serious consideration be given to assuring coastal 
nations a reasonable opportunity to participate in the exploitation of fish stocks 
nearest their coasts. This assurance should take the form of an agreement to 
allocate national catch quotas whenever the coastal nation requests such quotas. 
The quotas should be allotted to guarantee the coastal nation a minimum amount 
or percentage of the catch.” (Rpt. p. 110.) 
CMC Comment.—This, apparently, has not been very carefully considered. 
What happens when there are a great many coastal states, such as, for example, 
along the west coast of Africa, or along the coast of Central America, and the 
coastal states are not all simultaneously ready and willing? The recommendation 
that each state having a quota is required to catch it with vessels carrying its 
own flag is inconsistent with the recommendation made in the case of the North 
Atlantic fisheries quotas for haddock and cod, which advocated that “every par- 
ticipating nation should be authorized to transfer all or part of its quota to any 
other nation.” 
III. Coastal and Tidelands.—A. Recommendations Approved. 
1. All set forth in Chapter 3 on “Management of the Coastal Zone,” except as 
noted below: 
CMC Oomment. The Coastal Zone Authorities should be entirely a creature 
of the respective coastal States. It is noted that the Report defines the coastal 
zone “as including (1) seaward, the territorial sea of the United States and (2) 
landward, the tidal waters on the landward side of the low water mark along 
the coast, the Great Lakes, port and harbor facilities, marine recreational areas, 
and industrial and commercial sites dependent upon the seas or the Great Lakes. 
Hach coastal State, however, should be authorized to define the landward extent 
of its coastal zone for itself.” (Rept. p. 51.) 
The acquisition and management of the estuarine sanctuaries recommended 
(Rpt..p. 65) should be placed under the jurisdiction of the Coastal Zone Au- 
thorities of the respective States. In the areas of jurisdiction of Coastal Zone 
Authorities the powers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should be sub- 
ordinate to that of said authorities. CMC further recommends that the regu- 
latory authority of the federal government under the Rivers and Harbors Act 
of 1899, as so amended, be transferred to the proposed National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Agency. 
IV. Continental Shelf and Deep Sea Bed—A. Recommendations Approved 
Generally all regarding the organization structure of the federal government 
with respect to non-living marine resources set forth in Chapter 4, except as 
noted below. 
CMC Comment.—The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency should not 
assume the mineral leasing or geologic functions of the Department of the 
Interior. 
B. Recommendations Questioned 
1. Recommendation that “the United States take the initiative to secure 
international agreement on a redefinition of the ‘continental shelf’ for purposes 
of the Convention on the Continental Shelf. The seaward limit of each coastal 
nation’s ‘continental shelf’ should be fixed at the 200-meter isobath, or 50 nautical 
miles from the baseline for measuring the breadth of its territorial sea, which- 
ever alternative gives it the greater area for purposes of the Convention.” (Rpt. 
p. 145.) 
CMC Comment.—We urge that the entire subject of the continental shelf and 
the area beyond be approached by the Federal Government with great care and 
with full consideration to all national as well as international objectives. We 
find no evidence in the report justifying the proposed new definition of the 
continental shelf. 
2. Recommendation that “the United States seize the opportunity for leader- 
ship which the present situation demands and propose a new international 
legal-political framework for exploration and exploitation of the mineral 
resources underlying the deep seas, that is, the high seas beyond the outer 
limits of the continental shelf as redefined in accordance with the Commission’s 
recommendations. 
“The Commission recommends that new international Bere CIC UEs be negotiated 
embodying the following provisions : 
An International Registry Authority 
An International Fund 
Certain powers and duties of registering nations 
Limited policing functions for Registry Authority 
