exclusive authority until it covers not only the 

 mineral resources of the continental margins but 

 also the superjacent waters and the fish therein, 

 the surface waters and the air above these 

 waters.^' It is not inconceivable that coastal 

 States which will not find important mineral 

 deposits on or under their continental margins 

 may be particularly tempted to make such 

 enlarged claims. 



Such a development would obviously be con- 

 trary to traditional United States policy to limit 

 national claims to the sea in the interest of the 

 maximum freedom essential to the multiple uses 

 (including military) which the United States now 

 makes of the oceans. Accordingly, United States 

 security interests are best served by the narrowest 

 possible continental shelf for purposes of mineral 

 resources development.^^ 



Others who think it unnecessary for the United 

 States to seek a new international legal-poUtical 

 framework for mineral resource exploration and 

 exploitation assume that (1) general principles of 

 international law permit a State to acquire either 

 (a) general sovereignty of the sea-bed and subsoil 

 of any submarine area by way of occupation; or at 

 least (b) "sovereign rights," i.e., permanent, exclu- 

 sive access to the mineral resources of a particular 

 submarine area which it is the first to occupy and 

 exploit; or that (2) in any case, the United States 

 will stand ready to protect private investment and 

 activities in the exploration and exploitation of 



John Craven has noted that "the trend of inter- 

 national agreement and unilateral legislation leads to an 

 extension of the rights of coastal States seaward with 

 increasingly restrictive rights in the ever widening terri- 

 torial sea." Craven, Technology and the Law of the Sea, 2 

 The Ohio State University Mershon-Camegie Endowment 

 Conference on Law, Organization and Security in the Use 

 of the Ocean, March 17-18, 1967 at 1, 34 (1967). See 

 also. Remarks prepared and delivered by Captain L. E. 

 Zeni, USN, The University of Rhode Island Law of the 

 Sea Institute, June 26, 1968, at 7-9. 



For the unilateral legislation following the Truman 

 Proclamation from which Mr. Craven deduces this 

 "trend," see Baker, Legal Aspects of the Continental 

 Shelf and Seabed, Report No. 8, prepared for the U.S. 

 Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) by the 

 Battelle Memorial Institute, ACDA/St-120, May 17, 1967; 

 Negotiations on Continental Shelves: A Survey of Bases 

 for Definition, Technical Inquiry No. 5, prepared for 

 ACDA by ACTIAC, Battelle Memorial Insitute, Sept. 8, 

 1966. 



See Address of Robert A. Frosch, Assistant Secretary 

 of the Navy for Research and Development, The Ohio 

 State University Second Mershon-Camegie Endowment 

 Conference on Law, Organization and Security in the Use 

 of the Ocean, Oct. 7, 1967, at 8; Zeni, supra note 83, at 

 8-9. 



mineral resources in any submarine area of the 

 world. ^^ These assumptions are so dubious that it 

 is difficult to see how any private entrepreneur 

 would risk the large sums of money that deep 

 ocean resource engineering and development will 

 require on the beUef that any one of them will 

 prove to be valid. 



C. Is a Wait-and-See Policy Desirable in Any Case? 



It may be maintained that the uncertainties of 

 the status quo, with all their inhibiting effects 

 upon the attainment of American objectives re- 

 garding the use of the oceans, are stUl preferable to 

 any early effort to reach new, international agree- 

 ment on the framework that should govern the 

 exploration and exploitation of the mineral re- 

 sources underlying the high seas.^* Ocean science, 

 technology and mineral resources development are 

 still in their early stages. Knowledge is lacking of 

 the quantitative and qualitative distribution of the 

 mineral resources underlying the oceans. The 

 extent of future demand for these mineral re- 

 sources is not clear. No exploitation of these 

 mineral resources is presently taking place in deep 

 waters and it is doubtful whether such exploita- 

 tion is likely to occur soon. The characteristics of 

 deep ocean technology and of the minerals for 

 which there will be the greatest demand cannot be 

 foreseen and therefore the problems of conflicting 

 use that will arise cannot be anticipated. All this 

 makes it premature to devise a new framework to 

 allocate and regulate these uses. 



Furthermore, delay will enable the nations of 

 the world to enter into negotiations for a new 

 framework on the basis of some actual operating 

 experience and with a better understanding of the 

 implications of the alternatives. It may then be 

 easier to negotiate a satisfactory new framework 

 because nations will know the costs and diffi- 

 culties of exploiting the ocean's mineral resources 

 and will be more reasonable than they are likely to 



85 



See generally, Northcutt Ely, The Administration of 

 Mineral Resources Underlying the High Seas, American 

 Bar Association National Institute on Marine Resources, 

 Long Beach, California, June 8, 1967. 



This argument, supported by the reasons that follow 

 in the text, is advanced by the former Judge Advocate 

 General of the Navy Rear Admiral Wilfred Heam, The 

 Role of the United States Navy in the Formulation of 

 Federal Policy Regarding the Use of the Sea, American 

 Bar Association National Institute on Marine Resources, 

 Long Beach, CaMfomia, June 8, 1967, at 19; and Burke, A 

 Negative View of Proposals for United Nations Ownership 

 of Ocean Mineral Resources, id. at II, 10-11. 



VIII-23 



333-092 0-69— 19 



