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Senator Tunney. Secondly, do you have the ability, either individu- 

 ally, or does your group, the society, have the ability to make a sig- 

 nificant informational input to the American negotiatoi-s in this con- 

 ference on the law of the sea ^ 



Mr. Hargrove. 1 hope so. The American Society for International 

 Law has a number of continuing research panels covering various as- 

 pects of the negotiations including a working group on the environ- 

 mental question, and another group on the question of living resources, 

 as well as a third covering the whole range of ocean policies together. 



We will certainly make an effort to be of use to the policy formula- 

 tion process. Whether we are or not remains to be seen. 



Senator Tuxney. Are you or any of your associates on the Board of 

 Advisers or serving in an advisory capacity to the American negoti- 

 ators ? 



Mr. Hargrove. A number of participants in the society's research 

 and study activities are the members of the State Department's Ad- 

 visory Committee on the Law of the Sea. 



These are two separate capacities in which they function, but there 

 is that connection. 



Senator Tunney. Thank you very much, Mr. Hargrove. We appre- 

 ciate your testimony today. 



(The statement follows :] 



Statement of John Lawrence Hargrove, Director of Studies, the American 



Society of International Law 



Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee : 



Let me first of all express my appreciation at having been invited to participate 

 in this important symposium. May I note that the views which I shall express 

 are solely my own, and are not to be attributed to the American Society of Inter- 

 national Law, with which I am afliliated. 



I should like to talk about international law and protection of the ocean 

 environment. It is now part of our conventional wisdom that this is a timely 

 topic, but it is instructive to ask why. There are two reasons. Firs't, ours is an 

 age of explosive increase in the technology of economic production, of explosive 

 increase in hvmian population, and of global obsession with the ideal of economic 

 development as a way out of human misery. While human culture has always 

 produced alterations in the near-surface portions of the planet and their life 

 systems, both the absolute magnitude of these alterations and the rate of their 

 increase, we are told, now dwarf those of even so recent a time as a century ago. 



Now this has nothing peculiarly to do with the environment of the ocean, 

 of course, but applies to the planet as a whole, and is what suggests to us that 

 our planet is in or is approacliing what is sometimes called an environmental 

 crisis. AVhat makes the question of protecting the marine environment i)ecu- 

 liarly timely is that the world community, through the United Nations, is now 

 engaged in a great international legislative undertaking, which will very likely 

 result in fundamental revision of the law of ocean space. Negotiations are under- 

 way leading toward a United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, to 

 begin later this year. And while this effort was not stimulated by an interest 

 in protecting the integrity of the marine environment — far from it — ^it will almost 

 surely result in imixirtant decisions about the scoije of that interest within 

 the international community, who holds responsibility for defending it. ana 

 how it shall be defended. AVhat is going on is essentially a constitutional law- 

 making exercise rather than one aimed at detailed regulation of the various 

 uses of the ocean. And just by reason of this fact, together with the fact that 

 the environmental interest has not been a dominant one in this exercise, there 

 is a substantial risk that decisions will be taken within the next two to three 

 years or less wliich will seriously slight that interest and which, more importantly, 

 there will for the foreseeable future be no realistic prospect of undoing. 



My purpose in speaking to you today is to suggest some conclusions about 

 the substantial risks but equally substantial opportunities for protection of 

 the ocean environment which the next two to five years will accordinglv present. 



