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The draft articles explicitly provide that the coastal state shall not 
have the right to interrupt the free passage of vessels, a distinct 
improvement over innocent passage rules for a maritime power. Nor 
do the rules prevent submarine passage or overflight. 
The Soviet straits position is very similar to those of the Western 
maritime powers and very dissimilar from those of states such as 
Spain and Indonesia which seek to extend their control over neighbor- 
ing waterways. The Soviet stand primarily benefits the Soviet Navy 
which would retain favorable passage rights through the straits of 
the Sea of Japan and the Indonesian straits and which might even 
have improved passage rights for the Danish straits and the 
Dardenelles. The Soviet Union has remained firm in its conviction 
that coastal states should have no right to suspend passage through 
international straits. 2 
THE EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE 
Many states, led by the United States, have made a distinction 
between resource and nonresource use of the oceans. In the 1945 
Truman Proclamation, for example, the United States claimed the 
resources of the continental shelf, but expressly provided that non- 
resource uses, such as passage, over the shelf would not be affected. 
This distinction has proved useful for states such as the African states 
which have sought to control the economic resources off their coasts 
but do not wish to control the transit of vessels. Since 1971 many 
African and Latin American states have led the way for a 200-mile 
exclusive economic zone which would give the coastal state the 
economic wealth of offshore areas but preserve transit freedoms of 
the high seas for the maritime powers. This has been a very promising 
compromise position between the territorial sea claims of some Latin 
American and other states and the traditionalist claims of the Soviet 
Union and other maritime powers. 
For several years, the U.S.S.R. opposed the claims for an EEZ 
as ‘“‘misguided.”’!* But at Caracas in 1974, the Soviet Union, along 
with the United States, Great Britain, and France, announced its 
willingness to accept a 200-mile EEZ. The U.S.S.R. also conditioned 
its acceptance upon strict guarantees of free passage through the 
zone and, as a quid pro quo, an agreement upon 12-mile territorial 
seas and free passage through international straits. '4 
The Soviet decision to accept a 200-mile exclusive economic zone 
given the free passage assurances is a much greater concession than 
those made by the other maritime powers. The United States, Great 
Britain, and France stand to gain considerable economic gain from 
200-mile EEZ’s. In all these Western countries, there has been con- 
siderable pressure from the fishing industry to implement just such 
measures with or without international agreement. Thus, the 200- 
mile EEZ protects Western fishermen while providing for Western 
navies and merchantmen. The Soviet fishing industry, on the other 
hand, will be significantly harmed by 200-mile EEZ’s since most of 
Ry, Romanov broadcast, Mar. 16 1975, in FBIS:U.S.S.R., Mar. 21 1975, at A3. 
8 A/AC.138/SCII/SR.27, at 3 (1972). 
4 A/CONF.62/C.2/SR.26, at 13 (1974). 
