An Overview of Changes Occurring in the Law of the Sea—Implications for Federal-State Relations

In 1967 the United Nations began its work on the whole spectrum of law of the sea issues, including fishery, marine pollution, national contiguous zones of all types and the mining of the deeps beyond limits of national jurisdiction. There was then a consensus that many of the traditional rules, including some embodied in the 1958 Geneva Conventions, were outmoded.1 There was talk of making the oceans "the common heritage of mankind," a principle approved by the United Nations in 1970.2 In 1970, also, the United States proposed a far-reaching oceans regime that would have reduced the extent of national jurisdiction over coastal resources and created a wide offshore "Trusteeship Zone," the revenues from which would be earmarked for ocean research and for use by developing nations.3 The proposal would have effectively internationalized many potential petroleum resources, and was criticized both in the United States and abroad as naive and a "U.N. give-away."4