1270 
requires another explanation. Similarly, the Commission’s more specific ver- 
sion of the Law has no general application. 
Immediately after these references to Latin American jurisdictional claims, 
the Commission offers the following pronouncements : 
“Such developments are obviously contrary to traditional U.S. policy to limit 
national claims to the sea in the interest of the maximum freedem to the multiple 
uses, including military uses, which the United States makes of the oceans. 
National Security and world peace are best served by the narrowest possible 
definition of the continental shelf for purposes of mineral resources development.” 
The latter sentence is, in my opinion, the most unfortunate and unwise to be 
found in the Commission Report. To cast virtually the entire argument for im- 
mediate revision of the sheif limit (else it won’t be the “narrowest possible’) in 
terms of “national security and world peace’, words of the highest level of 
-abstraction, virtually prevents rational response and surely inhibits an exchange 
of views. About the best one can do is make a general denial and ask for the 
‘Commission or its members to offer some details about why world peace and 
national security require as the Commission says they do. Fortunately the time is 
rapidly passing when important international policy matters can easily be dis- 
posed of in the United States merely by waving the magic wand of ‘national 
security’, thereby summarily terminating discussion. At least insofar as accept- 
ance of a Commission recommendation is concerned it seems to be entirely proper 
to ignore the supposed military justification until such time as some more de- 
tailed pronouncement is forthcoming to clarify the bearing of national security 
on this matter. The opportunity for developing a reasonably clear statement of 
inilitary factors pertinent to the shelf question existed for the two-year life of 
the Commission. In view of this opportunity it seems now wholly unreasonable 
to ask for blind acceptance of a recommendation that appears to be based pri- 
marily upon undisclosed military considerations. 
The Commission’s recommendations of a shelf limit and its strong words 
about the NPC position on the shelf perhaps require some special consideration 
in light of the recent decision by the International Court of Justice in the 
North Sea Continental Shelf Cases. The Court there rejected the position that 
Article 6 of the Shelf Convention was already part of customary international 
law and held that Germany, which had not ratified the convention, was not 
obliged to delimit its North Sea shelf in accordance with the equidistance 
principle. For present purposes the important part of the decision is the obser- 
vation by the Court that the most fundamental rule of law pertaining to the 
continental shelf is that this area comes within the soverign right of the 
coastal state because it is a natural prolongation of the land territory and 
that this area and rights over it inhere in the coastal state without need for 
proclamation or pronouncement or any act whatsoever. Obviously such rights 
do not arise from agreement—they exist independently of the Shelf Convention. 
At the same time the Court acknowledged that some provisions of the Conven- 
tion, especially Articles 1-3, were ones ‘‘which, it is clear, were then (in 1958) 
regarded as reflecting, or as crystalizing, received or at least emergent rules 
of customary international law relative to the continental shelf, amongst them 
the question of the seaward extent of the shelf; .. .”* 
Thus the Court states that all coastal states possess rights over the shelf 
because the latter is a natural prolongation of the land mass but that the extent 
of such rights is not (apparently) coequal with the prolongation because the 
customary law is that found in Article 1 of the Convention, i.e., 200 meters or 
to the depth admitting of exploitation. In this view all states have the same 
shelf limit irrespective of their adherence to the Shelf Convention. 
If we may take these statements by the Court as representing international 
law on the issue of the shelf limit, and no doubt we should however aptly they may 
be regarded as dictum, their effects upon subsequent discussion of the Commis- 
sion’s recommendations may be important. First, it is now apparent that in sug- 
gesting certain revision of the Shelf Convention, i.e., a shelf defined as extending 
to 200 meters or 50 nautical miles, the Commission is proposing a change in 
customary international law. This means that a new treaty definition, as con- 
trasted to present Article 1, will be effective only as to those states which accept 
the amended treaty at least until such time as the new definition becomes so gen- 
erally accepted that it becomes customary law, replacing the present “customary” 
limit. The Court makes it very clear in this connection that acceptance of the 
Shelf Convention by about 40 states is “hardly sufficient” by itself to convert a 
“conventional rule” toa “general rule of international law.” * 
