tuna. They are principally concerned to protect 

 the aiichovetta fishery off their coasts. Yet there is 

 no evidence that tuna fishing cannot proceed with 

 adequate regard for the conservation of the 

 anchovetta fishery. It is clear that withdrawal of 

 the United States fleet from the fisheries to which 

 the South American countries claim exclusive 

 access would curtail the productive use of the 

 ocean's living resources without benefiting these 

 countries in any way. 



The unwarranted claims of Peru and Chile to a 

 200 mile exclusive fisheries zone have also im- 

 paired conservation objectives in whaling. These 

 countries permit no other nation to engage in 

 whaling within their 200 mile zones, yet overfish 

 migratory sperm whales passing through the 



44 



zones. 



IV. RECOMMENDATIONS 

 A. Introductory Remarks 



The International Panel has carefully evaluated 

 and rejected the following principal alternatives 

 proposed to govern exploitation of the living 

 resources of the high seas: (1) give each coastal 

 State permanent, exclusive access to the living 

 resources of the waters superjacent to its conti- 

 nental shelf; (2) give the United Nations, in the 

 name of the international community, title to the 

 living resources of the high seas beyond the 

 1 2-mile limit so that it may either operate the high 

 seas fisheries itself or auction to the highest 

 bidders exclusive rights to exploit specified stocks 

 of fish or specified areas of the high seas. In 

 Appendix C to this report, the panel sets forth the 

 arguments for and against each of these alterna- 

 tives. 



The situation with respect to the exploitation 

 of the living resources of the high seas differs 

 materially from that respecting the exploration 

 and exploitation of the mineral resources under- 

 lying the high seas. Existing principles of inter- 

 national law and the existing network of inter- 

 national treaties and agreements governing the 

 exploitation of the Uving resources of the high seas 

 are not beset by the major uncertainties surround- 

 ing the Convention on the Continental Shelf and 

 the general principles of international law ap- 

 plicable to mineral resource exploration and ex- 

 ploitation beyond the continental shelf. 



These uncertainties, it will be recalled, led the 

 panel to conclude that a new international legal- 

 political framework governing mineral resource 

 exploration and exploitation is necessary if these 

 activities are to be encouraged in a manner 

 consistent with the totaHty of United States 

 objectives in the oceans. However, the panel 

 concludes that United States objectives regarding 

 the living resources of the high seas can be best 

 attained by improving and extending the existing 

 treaty network, in the development of which the 

 United States has participated for more than 50 

 years. Our recommendations for such extension 

 and improvement are set forth below. 



B. National Catch Quotas for the North Atlantic 

 Cod and Haddock Fisheries 



1 . Basic Recommendation 



In the panel's judgment, the legal-political 

 framework for the exploitation of certain interna- 

 tional fisheries in which the United States is 

 greatly interested must make it possible for all the 

 participating nations to conduct profitable opera- 

 tions. To this end, we conclude that the fixing of 

 national catch quotas is one promising alternative 

 in certain important fishing areas. We do not urge 

 that national catch quotas should be instituted 

 immediately in every international fishery; this 

 method of enabhng the intensity of fishing effort 

 to be controlled should first be attempted where it 

 is most likely to succeed and its effects should be 

 assessed before it is more widely used. The cod 

 and haddock fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic 

 are ripe for such an attempt. Vessels, or fleets of 

 vessels, however, operate in the Northeast Atlantic 

 (NEAFC area)"*^ as well as in the Northwest 

 Atlantic (ICNAF area). Because the adoption of 



44 



Chapman, supra note 32, at 21. 



The Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Convention 

 (NEAFC), covering the Northeast Atlantic area from the 

 Barents Sea to the Strait of Gibralter, but excluding the 

 Baltic Sea, came into force June 1963. The Convention 

 was signed in 1959 by Belgium, Denmark, France, Federal 

 Republic of Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, 

 Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom 

 and the Soviet Union. Its predecessor (1946) Convention 

 for the Regulation of the Meshes of Fishing Nets and Size 

 Limits of Fish was more limited in area and in the kinds 

 of regulatory measures it could take. NEAFC may not 

 only fix the minimum size of meshes and prohibit the 

 taking of undersized fish, it may also regulate fishing gear 

 and appliances and seek to improve the stock by artificial 

 propagation or the transplantation of young fish. 



A Commission was established to take the necessary 

 conservation measures. It uses ICES as its primary source 

 of scientific information. 



VIII-57 



