The United Nations General Assembly has convened a new Conference on the Law of the Sea. Its object is to achieve comprehensive agreement on the international law of the sea. Most if not all members of the United Nations, as well as other states, can be expected to attend the substantive session in Caracas this summer.

National claims, whether made unilaterally or at the regional or subregional level, play a fundamental role in the development of the law regarding the exploration, exploitation, and conservation of natural resources of the sea. The contribution to this body of law made by the Latin American countries has no parallel in any other group of countries or region. This contribution has been not only fruitful but extremely varied. Nevertheless, when the different types or categories of claims are analyzed, importantsimilarities can be noted among the more recentclaims

The final preambular paragraph of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties affirms “that the rules of customary internationallaw will continue to govern questions not regulated by the provisions of the present Convention;” and Article 4 of the Convention, establishing the nonretroactivity of the Convention by providing that it “applies only totreaties which are concluded by States, after the entry into force of the present Convention with regard to such States,” stipulates that this nonretroactivity is “ [w]ithout prejudice to the application of any rules set forth in the present Convention to which treaties would be subject under international law independently of the Convention.”