Abstract
In 1967 Malta took the initiative in proposing that the United Nations General Assembly examine the “[q]uestion of the reservation exclusively for peaceful purposes of the seabed and the ocean floor, and the subsoil thereof, underlying the high seas beyond the limit of present national jurisdiction, and the use of their resources in the interests of mankind.” Intense activity then began in the United Nations and in other international and national, public and private, forums to obtain solutions to the problems arising with the start of the technological era of the seabed.
This essay was written in 1971, before the author was elected member of the International Court of Justice.
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References
U.N. Doc. No. E/4680.
Id. at 42.
Id. at 27.
Id. at 45.
The terminology of this work is similar to the one used by the U.N. Secretary in the Report on “Mineral Resources of the Sea,” U.N. Doc. No. ST/ECA/125, p. 1. The report defines the continental shelf, the continental slope, the continental and the ocean floor or abyss as follows: “The continental shelf is defined as that area of the sea or ocean floor between the mean low-water line and that marked change in the inclination of the floor at the upper edge of the continental slope. The change in inclination, from about one eight of 1° to considerably greater angles, occurs at depths usually between about 130 and 200 metres, but exceptionally as shallow as 50 metres or as deep as 500 metres. The width of the shelf ranges from less than one mile to 800 miles.” “The continental slope, usually from 10 to 20 miles wide, extends from the outer edge of the Continental shelf to the continental rise. The inclination of the slope varies widely from as little as 3° to over 45°; slopes of 25° are common.” “The continental rise is a broad, uniform and smooth-surfaced wedge of clastic sediments, from 100 to 1,000 km wide and up to 10 km thick, which, wherever deep-sea trenches are absent, slopes gently oceanward from the base of the continental slope, usually in 2,000 to 5,000 metres of water.” “The abyss or ocean floor appears to be a rolling plain from 3,300 to about 5,500 metres below the surface of the sea: it is scarred by deep gorges called trenches and studded with sea mounts and guyots. The mean depth of the superjacent waters is 3,800 metres. More than 75% of the ocean floor lies at a depth of less than 5,000 metres. The figures mentioned in the Report by the Secretary-General are not the ones followed by authors. In a recent work there was established for the continental shelf a median distance of 65 kilometres from the coast and the depth of 150 metres; for the continental margin an average of 4000 metres depth, without fixing a distance from the coast. V. E. McKelvey, J. I. Tracey, Jr., G. E. Stoetz and J. G. Velder, Subsea Mineral Resources and Problems Related to their Development, 619 Geographical Survey Circular 2 (1969).
National Petroleum Council, Petroleum Resources under the Ocean Floor 24-25 (1909).
Article 1 of the 1958 Convention states: “For the purpose of these articles, the term “continental shelf” is used as referring (a) to the seabed and subsoil of submarine areas adjacent to the coast but outside the area of the territorial sea, to a depth of 200 metres or, beyond that limit, to where the depth of the superjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural resources of the said areas; (b) to the seabed and subsoil of similar submarine areas adjacent to the coasts of islands.”
[1970] I.C.J. 70.
This resolution was adopted by 65 votes in favour, 12 against and 30 abstentions.
Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1950, Vol. II, p. 384, para. 198.
Id., 1951, Vol. I, 113th Meeting, para. 118.
Id., 117th session, para. 65.
Id., Vol. II, p. 141.
Id., 1953, Vol. II, p. 213-114, paras. 64, 65, 66.
Id., p. 212, Article 1.
Id., 1956, Vol. II, p. 296.
Id., Commentary, p. 296, para. 4.
Id., p. 297.
First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, Official Documents, Vol. II, 8th Plenary Session, para. 44.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.4.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.6.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.7.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.12.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.29/Rev. 1.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.30.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.32.
U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/C.4/L.33.
The above proposals are contained in U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 13/42, at p. 127-136.
Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1956, Vol. II, p. 278.
This theory was maintained in the Geneva Conference by Pakistan and the Lebanon. See also S. S. Bernfeld Developing the Resources of the Sea — Security of Investment. Int’l Lawyer 67-76 (1967).
S. Oda, International Control of the Sea Resources 167 (1963).
F. T. Christy, Jr., of the organization Resources for the Future, maintains in a paper entitled Realities of Ocean Resources prepared by the Marine Frontiers Conference (University of Rhode Island) in 1967: “In accordance with the Geneva Convention the resources of the seabed belong to the coastal states up to the depth of 200 metres or beyond that limit up to where the depth of the superjacent waters admits the exploitation of natural resources. The exclusive rights are consequently only limited by the criteria of exploitability and, as has been noticed above, this criteria should have already resulted in an extension of the limits beyond 200 metres.”
Ibid.
Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1956, Vol. II, p. 298.
United Nations, Multilateral Treaties in respect of which the Secretary-General performs depositary functions 333 (1968).
Report of the ad hoc Committee to study the peaceful uses of the seabed and the ocean floor beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, p. 48.
This possibility is enunciated, without being supported, by the Polish Professor R. Bierzanek, Towards a Better Use of the Ocean 140 (……).
L. Henkin, Law of the Sea’s Natural Resources 24 (1968).
National Petroleum Council, Petroleum Resources under the Ocean Floor (1969).
Id. at 57.
Committee on Deep Sea Mineral Resources, Interim Report, July 19, 1968 pp. IX-X
Cited in National Petroleum Council, supra note 39, at 62.
R. Y. Jennings, Some Possible Implications of the North Sea Case Judgment, Continental Shelf Jurisdiction 18 Int’l and Comp. L. Q. 819-32 (1969).
North Sea Continental Shelf [1969] I.C.J. 22.
S. Oda, Towards a Better Use of the Ocean 198 (1969).
E. Mann Borgese, The Ocean Regime 26 (……).
The U.N. and the Seabed, Twenty First Report of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace 12 (……).
Treaty governing the exploration and use of the seabed, U.N. Committee of the World Peace through Law Center, Article 1, p. 5.
E. Mann Borgese, supra note 46, at 10, 26.
A Plan for Sequential Leasing of the Seabed — M.I.T. Group, December 1968.
This draft has been distributed unpublished.
Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 90th Congress, 1st session on S. J. Res. 111, S. Res. 172, S. Res. 186, 29 November 1967.
90th Congress, 1st session S.R. 186, p. 15.
L. Henkin, supra note 38, at 42–48.
Our Nation and the Sea. A Plan of Action. Report of the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources, at 148-151 (1969).
Professor W. T. Burke seems to accept this same criterion. See Oda, supra note 45, at 27, where he says: “First, it appears to have escaped notice that the definition in the Convention can be read so that the work ‘adjacent’ qualifies both the alternative formulations that follow it defining the shelf. In this view the area out to a depth of 200 metres is subject to certain sovereign rights of the coastal state only so long as that region is ‘adjacent’ to such a state. If such an interpretation were accepted, and unless the term ‘adjacent’ is to be deprived of any meaning, there are instances in which a part of the 200 metre region would be beyond coastal authority. Everyone accepts the idea that the exploitability criterion is subject to the limitations of adjacency.”
Full text and translation, by Helen L. Clagett, in 9 Int’l Legal Materials 1081–83 (1970).
United States Mission to the United Nations, Press Release USUN 25 (70), p. 8, March 4, 1970.
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© 1974 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Ruda, J.M. (1974). The Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf. In: Rodley, N.S., Ronning, C.N. (eds) International Law in the Western Hemisphere. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9214-9_2
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