THE ABASHED CONSERVATIVE 
THE SOVIET UNION IN THE U.N. LAW OF THE SEA DEBATE 
(Mark W. Janis,! Harvard Law School) 
Ideologically and rhetorically the Soviet spokesmen in the United 
Nations’ law of the sea debate incline toward “the progressive develop- 
ment” of international law. Substantively, however, they promote the 
classical law of the sea, guarding the traditional system of ocean 
order more vigilantly than the delegations of the ‘‘conservative”’ 
powers, the United States, Great Britain, and France. Despite the 
dilemmas posed by the U.S.S.R.’s commitment to Marxist communism, 
the nature of its maritime interests forces the Soviet Union abashedly 
into a deeply conservative law of the sea position. 
The U.S.S.R. has erected at great cost extensive systems of ocean 
use. The Soviet Navy, fishing fleet, merchant marine, oceanological 
and ocean mineral establishments put the U.S.S.R. into the front rank 
of maritime powers. But no other maritime power relies so greatly 
on access through and to the waters lying off the shores of other 
states. The Norwegian Sea, the Baltic and North Seas, the Mediter- 
ranean, and the Sea of Japan ring Soviet waters. Only northeastern 
Siberia lies directly off an ocean. Radical change in the law of the 
sea could drastically curtail Soviet ocean use by cutting off rights 
of ocean transit and exploitation. The combination of the massive 
investment of the U.S.S.R. in ocean activities and the poor geographi- 
cal situation of the country explains why the Soviet Union has been 
obliged to be the staunchest defender of the old ocean order, resisting 
the demands of many Third World states in the law of the sea debate. 
Ever since the beginning of the current U.N. sea law debate in 
1967, the U.S.S.R has been found on the side of the traditional 
freedoms of the high seas. The Soviet Union has opposed limits on 
national maritime activities either by coastal states or by an interna- 
tional ocean regime. This paper presents and analyzes the ocean poli- 
cies of the U.S.S.R. as expressed in the debates in the United Nations’ 
General Assembly, its ad hoc and permanent seabed committees, and 
at the ongoing Third Law of the Sea Conference. The paper concen- 
trates on six areas: territorial seas, international straits, exclusive 
economic zones, the Continental Shelf, an international ocean author- 
ity, and the ideological overtones of the law of the sea debate. 
'The author took his undergraduate degree in international relations from Princeton and took a 
degree in jurisprudence from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He served as a naval officer, teaching in- 
ternational law and politics for 3 years at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. He is 
presently a J.D. candidate at the Harvard Law School and a research associate of the Center for Ad- 
vanced Research at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I. 
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