1 Many groups, particularly on the Pacific coast, urge that action should be taken at once, or should have been taken already. For example, the General Conference of the Pacific Northwest Trade Association adopted April 17-18, 1950, a resolution “that no peace treaty should be entered into with Japan by either Canada or the United States until and unless definite and binding commitments are made by Japan which will adequately protect the interests of Canada and the United States in their coastal fisheries not only, within but beyond terriorial waters.” The Pacific Fisheries Conference resolved onNov. 29, 1950, “that in the treaty of peace with Japan, or in a separate treaty to be concluded prior to or at the same time, suitable treaty provisions be made which will ensure that Japanese fishermen will stay out of the fisheries of the Northeast Pacific Ocean which have been developed and husbanded by the United States and the other countries of North America.” See also Eeport of the Committee on Fisheries and Territorial Waters, 1950 Proceedings of the Section of International and Comparative Law, American Bar Association, p. 37; E. W. Allen, “International Aspects of Fishery Conservation,”Pacific Northwest Industry, June, 1950, p. 160.

2 Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 25, No. 635 (Aug. 27, 1951), p. 350. In his address,“Essentials of a Peace with Japan,” on March 31, 1951, at Whittier College(Department of State Publication 4171, p. 8), Ambassador J. F. Dulles pointed out that attempting to cover theproblems of Japanese participation in high seas fisheries in the peace treaty itself, rather than in separate agreements between Japan and the country or countries concerned in each fishery, “would almost surely postpone indefinitely both the conclusion of peace and the obtaining of the results which are desired.” He added,“There is, I believe, a considerable possibility of agreement between the United States and Japanese fishing interests.… No quick results canby won by attempting to make the peace treaty into a universal convention on high-seas fishing…. The Japanese now see the importance of avoiding practices which in the past brought Japan much ill will,and, if we can hold to our tentative timetable, there can,I believe, be an early and equitable settlement of this thorny problem.”

On the other hand, at the recent San Francisco Conference the Indonesian and Netherlands representatives expressed the view that the treaty should have established greater safeguards against Japanese fishing in high seas areas off Indonesia and Dutch New Guinea. The New York Times, Sept. 7, 1951, p. 7, col. 5; ibid., Sept. 8, 1951, p. 4, col. 3 and p. 5, col. 7.

3 Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 24, No. 608 (Feb. 26, 1951), p. 351.

4 37 Stat. 1542; this Journal, Supp., Vol. 5 (1911), p. 267. See Hackworth’s Digest of International Law, Vol. 1, pp. 792-798; S. S. Hayden, International Protection of Wild Life (1942), pp. 114-136; L. Leonard, International Eegulation of Fisheries (1944),pp. 55-95. On the Japanese termination, see Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 5(1941), p. 336. The United States and Canada continued protection of fur seals under a provisional agreementof Dec. 8 and 19, 1942, 58 Stat. 1379, Ex. Agr. Ser. 415, which was modified Dec. 26, 1947, Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1686.Pending such time as a new treaty may be worked out between the United States, Canada,Japan, and the Soviet Union, it would appear to be desirable for the United States and Canada to obtain from Japan an acceptance of the principles of the provisional agreement, at least to the extent that pelagic sealing would be forbidden to Japanese nationals and vessels. Such an agreement should not be too difficult to negotiate.

5 Cf. L. Leonard, op. cit., pp. 98-109; idem, “Becent Negotiations toward the International Eegulation of Whaling,” this Journal, Vol. 35 (1941), p. 90.

6 This controversy is reviewed briefly in L. Leonard, International Regulation of Fisheries(1944), pp. 121-136; see further sources cited there. P. C. Jessup, “ T h e Pacific Coast Fisheries,” this Journal, “Vol. 33 (1939), p. 129, discusses the problem and the bills introduced in Congress to extend control over adjacent high seas far enough to cope with it. The White House Press Release accompanying the Truman Coastal Fisheries Proclamation of September 28, 1945, suggests the connection of that Proclamation with the desire to prevent a repetition of such trouble as that with Japan over Alaskan salmon.Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 13 (1945), p . 484.

7 Cf. Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 14 (1946), p. 346.

8 Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1849; this Journal, Supp., Vol. 43(1949), p. 174. The Norwegian comment on the treaty at the San Francisco Conference urged that the Japanese whaling fleet should not be expanded, lest the Whaling Convention prove inadequate with greater pressure upon the depleted world stock of whales.The New York Times, Sept. 7, 1951, p. 6, col. 1.

9 For the Pacific Halibut Treaty of 1937, revising the earlier conventions, see 50 Stat.1351; TJ. S. Treaty Series, No. 917; this Journal, Supp., Vol. 32 (1938), p. 71. For the Sockeye Salmon Treaty of 1930, see 50 Stat. 1355; TJ. S. Treaty Series, No. 918;this Journal, Supp., Vol. 32 (1938), p. 65. On these treaties and the regime under them, see J . Tomasevich, International Agreements on Conservation of Marine Eesources,(1943), pp. 125-265; statement by W. M. Chapman of the Department of State, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the Fisheries Conventions, July 14, 1949, pp. 52-56.

10 The Convention with Mexico, signed Jan. 25, 1949, is published in T.I.A.S. 2094;this Journal, Supp., Vol. 45 (1951), p. 51. That with Costa Rica, signed May 31, 1949,is in T.I.A.S. 2044. On both, see also the Hearings cited in note 9 supra.

11 Cf. J. W. Bingham, Report on the International Law of Pacific Coastal Fisheries(1938). See also E. W. Allen, “ The Fishery Proclamation of 1945,” this Journal, Vol. 45 (1951), p. 177.

13 Department of State Press Releases, Vol. 18 (1938), p. 413.

14 10 Fed. Reg. 12304; this Journal, Supp., Vol. 40 (1946), p. 46. Eegarding this proclamation, see E. M. Borehard, “Resources of the Continental Shelf,” this Journal, Vol. 40 (1946), p . 53; J . W. Bingham, “ The Continental Shelf and the Marginal Belt,”ibid., p. 173; E. W. Allen, “Legal Limits of Coastal Fishery Protection,” Washington Law Eeview, Vol. 21 (1946), p. 1; W. M. Chapman, “United States Policy on High Seas Fisheries,” Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 498 (Jan. 16, 1949), p. 67; C. B.Selak, “Recent Developments in High Seas Fisheries Jurisdiction under the Presidential Proclamation of 1945,” this Journal, Vol. 44 (1950), p. 670.

15 Apparently the only serious attempt to deny the validity of a treaty limiting the activities of nationals and vessels of the contracting parties on the high seas was one of the American arguments in the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitration of 1909-1910 with Great Britain, in which it was contended that the American renunciation of the “liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed … to take … fish on, or within three marine miles of any of the … bays ” of British North American possessions, could not be interpreted to apply to those broader bays which were not part of British territorial waters.In its award the tribunal specifically denied this American contention, saying: “The United States contend: 1st. That while a State may renounce the treaty right to fish in foreign territorial waters, it can not renounce the natural right to fish on the high seas.But the tribunal is unable to agree with this contention. Because though a State can not grant rights on the high seas it certainly can abandon the exercise of its right to fish on the high seas within certain definite limits.” (Scott, Hague Court Eeports (1916),p. 141, at p. 182.)

16 See statement by Canadian Delegate L. B. Pearson at San Francisco Conference.The New York Times, Sept. 8, 1951, p. 4, col. 1.