Sea conference agrees only to meet again

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33626, 30 August 1974, Page 9

Sea conference agrees only to meet again

(.Y.Z P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

CARACAS, August 29

Delegates to the United Nations law of the sea conference in Caracas will end 10 weeks of wrangling today with little to show for all their efforts except an agreement to meet again in Geneva next March.

The session, which began! amid hopes that an international maritime con-I vention could be hammered out which would last for many years, was petering out in an atmosphere of national jealousies and mutual suspicion. The Caracas meetings, which have dragged on with almost no perceptible moveiment throughout the sumimer, never reached the point of actual negotiations on iany single one of the scores !of subjects on the agenda. After a week of arguments over rules of procedure and nearly three weeks of general policy statements by well over 100 nations, the ■various committees bogged I down in long discussions of dozens of draft texts. The texts dealt with subjects as diverse as the extent of territorial waters and the training of personnel and transfer of technology to developing countries. By today's closing cereimony, the conference had ’finally reached general agreement on the establishment world-wide of 12-mile territorial sea limits and accepted the principle of i creating 200-mile economic zones for coastal States. But the battle over the ex- ! tent of exclusiveness over and responsibility for fishing and exploitation of other ,! resources within the 200mile zones remained stale- ■ mated, with major maritime ■Power like the United ■States, the Soviet Union, land Britain massively

opposed by developing; nations demanding wide powers over all resources and movements in the pro-! posed zones off their shores. Another major bone of contention has been the question of who should; administer the proposed I international regime to govern the deep seas. Broadly, the developed! nations want a seabed 'authority to be mainly a !licensing body to grant con-; Tracts for deep-sea mining.! : while the developing world i ’called for strong control' ;over exploitation of seabed: i resources. Wide disagreements also still exist between the major maritime powers and the developing world over how Ito tackle and control marine I pollution, fisheries, scientific i research, and the rights of land-locked States. Almost all delegations

have acknowledged that unless a treaty is concluded some time in 1975, or early 1976, the attempt to harness and exploit the seas on an orderly basis for the benefit of man will fail, possibly for generations. “Instead of order there will be chaos and terrible dangers to world peace,” according to one leading delegate.