124 



STATEMENT OF JOHN LAWRENCE HARGROVE, DIRECTOR OF 

 STUDIES, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 



Mr. Hargrove. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



I am cognizant of the lateness of the hour, and I do have a writ- 

 ten statement of some length which I would propose to submit to 

 you, and if you agree now, I will simply summarize the main points. 



The main purpose of my appearing before you is to make some 

 remarks and to suggest conclusions about international law and the 

 protection of the ocean environment. 



This is a timely topic, and it is conventional wisdom to say so, 

 but I think it is important to recognize at the outset why the pro- 

 tection of the ocean environment is peculiarly timely now. 



The reason is that the world community is now engaged in a great 

 international legislative undertaking, the negotiations underway for 

 the Law of the Sea Conference with which you are familiar, which 

 will very likely result in fundamental revisions of the law of what is 

 called ocean space. 



The thrust of my remarks is that the fact of these negotiations, and 

 the fact of their character as an essentially constitutional lawmaking 

 process for the ocean, create very substantial risks as well as sub- 

 stantial opportunities with respect to the interests that the world com- 

 munity shares as a whole in the protection of the marine environment. 

 Consequently by far the most important decisions that will be made 

 in the near future at the international level will be made in the near 

 future at the international level will be in the Law of the Sea Con- 

 ference, and not in other forums that are concerned with more tech- 

 nical and specifically regulatory matters of ocean environmental pro- 

 tection, such as the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultive Agency 

 (IMCO), or the United Nations Environmental Program recently 

 established. 



In my prepared remarks, I comment on the work of IMCO, and 

 identify, as other witnesses have before me, the signifiance of the 

 treaty regulations which IMCO has produced, directed exclusively 

 to the area of pollution by vessels. 



I comment also on the Ocean Dumping Convention, the general 

 convention recently concluded which is directed toward another form 

 of vessel pollution, pointing out that this is the most highly developed 

 body of regulatory law in the marine-pollution-protection field, but 

 that even at that it is regulation in a fairly crude sense. It is regula- 

 tion by treaty, which is cumbersome to bring about, and cumbersome 

 to change. 



It is of significance to note that the United States in the person of 

 Chairman Train, if I am not mistaken, has only in the last week or 

 10 days proposed to IMCO the adoption of a more sophisticated regu- 

 latory mechanism in the form of a permanent committee of IMCO 

 which would have jurisdiction over vessel pollution, and would be 

 able to regulate through the enactment of binding law by utilizing 

 one of the familiar methods of international regulation. 



Senator Tuxxey. I would think you support what Chairman Train 

 is suggesting ? 



Mr. Hargro\'e. Yes; I do support it, but it is important to under- 

 stand the significance of this move in an overall perspective. And the 



