1 The Soviet Government’s news agency Tass, in a statement published in Pravda, June 6, 1985, appears to have made the author’s position official by saying:

The USSR has not recognized and does not recognize anyone’s actions that are not in keeping with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as expressed in the arbitrary appropriation of resources of the international area of the seabed. The issuance of licenses by the US authorities for sectors of the area of the seabed in question, in violation of the Convention that at present bears the signatures of more than 150 states and in circumvention of the preparatory commission for an international seabed authority and an international tribunal on maritime law, is illegal and at variance with the will and interests of the overwhelming majority of states.