internationally and that the current U.S. procedures will not suffice to 

 achieve the U.S. policy goals. This is a pessimistic statement more with 

 respect to the direction matters have taken internationally than to specific 

 criticism of past approaches. Nevertheless, NACOA feels that these diffi- 

 culties could have been sooner anticipated and a more imaginative and 

 coordinated program could have been developed. 



NACOA has been critical of the activities of the Working Group on 

 the Law of the Sea because of an apparent diffusion of objectives and a 

 lack of sharply developed policies or positions. The situation has recently 

 improved considerably, undoubtedly through the effect of increasing 

 the delegation by five nongovernmental experts, and the formation of a 

 broadly based advisory committee. One of the results of this interaction 

 is, as is noted later, an agreed industrywide position for the fisheries in- 

 dustries. There is, however, the ever-present danger of weakening of ob- 

 jectives under the grind and tedium of a one-hundred nation debate. 



The entire position of the United States in international oceanic affairs 

 should be thoroughly reviewed and clarified without neglecting the pos- 

 sible contribution of any department or agency. The position must include 

 a strong policy for keeping the oceans and the classical straits open for 

 free navigation and the oceans free for commerce and for responsible 

 scientific research. The oceans are a common heritage. This heritage car- 

 ries with it the necessity for freedom to explore, freedom for navigation, 

 and freedom for simple human enjoyment. 



ACHIEVEMENT AT GENEVA (1958) 



With these goals in mind, and before setting down specific program- 

 matic recommendations, we present our analysis of the current situation 

 and the history of how we arrived at what appears to NACOA to be a 

 difficult impasse. Perhaps the most useful and illuminating starting point 

 is the Geneva Conventions of 1958. These Conventions were the result 

 of intensive and arduous preparatory conferences. They were momentous 

 achievements, made possible largely by intensive and lengthy preparations 

 involving considerable technical consultation. The signatories assigned the 

 bottom resources out to the 200-meter depth to the adjacent state and 

 made easy allowance for general research outside of territorial waters in 

 this zone by agreeing that permission to carry on research in this region 

 would "not normally be withheld." Freedom for research in the ocean 

 basins outside these limits was unrestricted. Considerable detail went along 

 with these conventions — specifying, for example, that lobster and shrimp 

 were not to be classified as belonging to the bottom but rather to the 

 water mass, and so on. 



One provision was accepted that may soon be a thorny issue; it pro- 

 vided that the bottom resources of the region beyond the 200-meter depth 

 be assigned to the adjacent state to the extent that they are economically 



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