Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 March 2017
[Reproduced from the text provided to International Legal Materials by the U.S. Department of State.
[The United States Draft of a U.N. Convention on the International Seabed Area was submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of the Seabed and the Ocean Floor Beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction on August 3, 1970.
[The U.N. Secretary-General, pursuant to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2574(C)(XXIV) (9 International Legal Materials 421 (1970), submitted a study on international machinery having jurisdiction over the peaceful uses of the seabed and ocean floor t o the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of the Seabed and the Ocean Floor beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction . The study is contained in U.N. Document A/AC.138/23 of June 24, 1970.
[Earlier statements concerning the oceans policy of the United States , including the Presidential statement of May 23, 1970, appear at 9 International Legal Materials 806 (1970).
[The Declaration of Montevideo on the Law of the Sea, made by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Nicaragua and Uruguay on May 8, 1970, appears at I.L.M. page 1081.]
* NOTE: The United States has simultaneously proposed an international Convention which would, inter alia, fix the boundary between the territorial sea and the high seas at a maximum distance of 12 nautioal miles from the coast.
(NOTE: The preceding Article is not intended to imply that States do not currently have rights under, or consistent with, the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf.)
* The precise gradient should be determined by technical experts, taking into account, among other factors, ease of determination, the need to avoid dual administration of single mineral deposits, and the avoidance of including excessively large areas in the International Trusteeship Area.