Common Heritage of Mankind: Mutilation of an Ideal

Ever since Arvid Pardo, Malta’s representative to the United Nations, startled much of the international community with his unique proposal that the UN declare the seabed and ocean floor “underlying the seas beyond the limits of present national jurisdiction” to be the “the common heritage of mankind,” and not “subject of national appropriation in any manner whatsoever,” the nations of the world have been busy in attempting to build on a largely outdated and outmoded extant oceanic law a regime to govern the ever-increasing uses of the oceans and their resources.1 By early 1960s, it had come to be known that beyond the continental margin, generally referred to as the deep sea-bed, there lay extensive deposits of valuable manganese nodules. Potentially mineable, these nodules contain at least 25 per cent manganese, 1.25 per cent nickel, 1 per cent copper and 1.22 per cent cobalt, all metals essential for a modern industrial economy.