Appendix A Alternative International Legal-Political Frameworks for Exploring and 

 Exploiting the Mineral Resources of the Deep Seas 



I. DIVIDE THE MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE BED OF THE HIGH SEAS AND ITS SUBSOIL 

 AMONG THE COASTAL STATES' 



a. The following arguments may be adduced in favor of this alternative: 



(1) The United States would benefit by this alternative because of Alaska and its long coastlines on 

 the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. 



(2) This alternative would perpetuate a familiar pattern by recognizing the exclusive authority of 

 coastal States to lease and protect rights to explore and exploit mineral resources of the sea-bed and 

 subsoil anywhere in the world. 



(3) It would thus encourage American private investment enterprise. With respect to resources in the 

 domains allotted to the United States, private companies would probably deal with the Department of 

 the Interior, as they do now for permission to exploit mineral resources on our outer continental shelf. 

 With respect to resources in the domains allotted to other coastal States, private companies would deal 

 with these other nations as they do now. The advantage which American technology now has vis-a-vis 

 the rest of the world and the capital available to American private enterprise for investment would assure 

 American entrepreneurs favorable consideration by other coastal States. 



(4) It would benefit most of the nations of the world, since 103 of the 123 UN member-States of the 

 United Nations are coastal States.^ 



(5) It would contribute to international order by eliminating (a) a "race" between nations for access 

 to the bed of the deep seas and the possibility of conflicting claims; (b) problems of deciding which 

 State has jurisdiction to prescribe civil and criminal law applicable to exploration and exploitation of the 

 bed of the deep seas; and (c) conflict-of-law problems.^ 



(6) It would assure coastal States against foreign installation near their shores. 



(7) It would avoid all the difficulties connected with the various proposals for international control 

 discussed below. 



(8) For aU these reasons, it would do most to accelerate exploration and exploitation of the mineral 

 resources of the deep seas. 



b. Nevertheless, the panel rejects this alternative because it concludes that it would frustrate 

 American objectives with regard to the use of the oceans. 



(1) The United States would not find this alternative acceptable the world over. If islands were given 

 the same rights as continents, which they have under the Continental Shelf Convention, the following 

 results would follow its adoption:"* 



(a) The French would receive a vast area of the Indian Ocean because of Kerguelen, Crozet, and 

 other islands; and a large area of the eastern tropical Pacific, in part because of Clipperton Island, a 

 desolate rock lying about 500 miles southwest of Mexico; 



(b) The British would get more than half of the South Atlantic Ocean, because of Ascension, St. 

 Helena, Tristan da Cunha, and South Georgia; and a large share of the North Atlantic, including part of 

 the Blake Terrace, because of Bermuda and the Bahamas; 



*This alternative has been advanced by Bernfeld, Developing the Resources of the Sea-Security of Investment, 2 The 

 Int'l Lawyer 67 (1967). 



^See Marine Science Affairs 1968, Table E-4, at 197-200. 



^Henkin, supra note 38 to Chapter 3, at 60, n. 184. 



''Christy, Alternative Regimes for the Minerals of the Sea Floor, American Bar Association National Institute on 

 Marine Resources, Long Beach, Cahfomia, June 8, 1967, at 13, 14. 



For a map produced by Mr. Christy showing the division of the floor of the ocean along lines every point of which is 

 equal in distance to the nearest points of adjacent or opposite coastal States, including islands, see Interim Report on 

 the United Nations and the Issue of Deep Ocean Resources of the Subcommittee on International Organizations and 

 Movements of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, H. Rep. No. 999, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. 89 (1967). 



VIII-91 



