The Seabed Arms Control Issue 1967·1971 a Superpower Symbiosis?

572 THE SEABED ARMS CONTROL ISSUE 1967·1971 A SUPERPOWER SYMBIOSIS? James A. Barry, Jr. Advances in marine engineering, life Navy's Sealab experiments, as well as support, and other technologies are con similar programs by the Soviet Union, tinuing to render the ocean floor at suggest that it may soon be possible for increasing depths accessible for resource men to work for extended periods of exploitation, scientific research, and, time at great depths. In short, the potentially, military uses. The avail seabed is becoming a tempting area for ability of high-strength steels and alumi future military and economic expansion num alloys, fiberglass reinforced plastic, by the technologically advanced powers, titanium, and beryllium could presage an unclaimed domain of increasing the construction of submarine hulls for salience in the relations between the operation at 20,000 feet-far deeper superpowers. 1 than the record depth attained by the Since 1967 the international com bathyscaphe "Trieste." Nuclear energy munity has demonstrated more and could enable such vehicles to operate at more concern for the future of this vast maximum depth for extended periods. domain, comprising some 70 percent of The application of high-strength ma the earth's surface. Although some of terials to undersea structures coupled the advanced nations had shown interest with new developments in remote in establishing control over the seabed sensing and manipulation (telechirics) since World War II, it remained for tiny could, in the foreseeable future, render Malta to bring the seabed issue to the the ocean floor open to both economic forefront of international politics with and military exploitation. The U.S. impassioned pleas to the United Nations 573 to preven t a mad scram hIe for the ocean technology-dependent issue which is floor. Since that time there has been likely to occur with increasing fre some moderate progress toward assert quency in the relations of nations. But ing international control over the un· more important, it is a useful vehicle for claimed reaches of the ocean bottom, the study of changing superpower rela bu t to many this has amounted to tions and the burgeoning of a multipolar nothing more than tokenism. international political system. This Thus, despite some accommodation, paper examines the seabed arms control the seabed issue remains a perplexing treaty negotiations from 1967 to 1971 political and technological problem. It is and the treaty's relationship to changing a nexus of difficulties-security inter United States-Soviet relations. ests, participation of noncoastal states The military and economic potential in decisions, preservation of existing of the seabed was recognized as far back claims to territorial seas, and freedom of as World War II. In September 1945 navigation are but a few of the seem President Truman issued a proclamation ingly insurmountable problems which declaring that the United States re the international community faces in garded the natural resources of the trying to unravel this issue. seabed and subsoil of the Continental Given these difficulties, it is of great Shelf beneath the high seas but con interest that in the past few years a large tiguous to the coasts of the United number of states, including the United States as appertaining to this country's States and the Soviet Union, have been jurisdiction and control. Other states, able to reach an accord on banning notably the United Kingdom, Australia, nuclear weapons and other weapons of and the oil-rich Trucial States of the mass destruction from the seabed. The Persian Gulf followed suit. A number of negotiations provide an excellent case Latin American States, particularly study of the machinations of interna Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru, claimed ex tional politics. clusive jurisdiction not only over the The birth of the seabed issue and the seabed and its subsoil to a distance of acceptance of the treaty banning weap 200 miles, bu t in some cases to the high ons of mass destruction also can be seen seas above. These rapidly escalating as a microcosm of superpower relations. claims alarmed many members of the The seabed arms control treaty, perhaps in ternational community, especially better than any other international when they infringed on traditional con agreement in recent history, illustrates cepts of freedom of the seas. In an the shifting power relationships which attempt to head them off, the United have accompanied the waning of the Nations General Assembly referred the bipolar, cold war relationship of the issue to the International Law Commis immediate postwar years. It is a prime sion in 1951. The Commission refused example of what we might call, for lack to sanction the unilateral claims of of a better term, "superpower sym states as a basis for an international law biosis," i.e., a relationship in which of the seabed, but agreed to prepare a advanced states with divergent goals draft set of rules which eventually temporarily join forces to achieve a evolved into the 1958 Geneva Conven specific end_ They eschew collision poli tion on the Continental Shelf. This cies for collusion even, as in this case, provided the only constructive set of when the net result is a treaty which rules on the seabed to which the inter neither state favors in its entirety. national community had given its assent The seabed arms control issue, then, when the seabed arms control issue was is important for a number of reasons. In raised in 1968. itself it is a prime example of the sort of The 1958 Convention is extremely 574 limited in scope. It deals only with the applied to the problem of regulating the Continental Shelf and not the seabed as use of the seabed, is its failure to define a whole. The Continental Shelf is de the precise limits of national jurisdic fined as: tion. It provides a definition of the ... the seabed and subsoil of the Continental Shelf that is technology submarine areas adjacent to the dependent, thus increasing the tempta coast bu t ou tside the area of the tion to the developed states that they territorial sea, to a depth of 200 intrude into the unclaimed domain of meters or, beyond that limit, to the seabed. In effect, the convention where the depth of the super provides that any action which a state is adjacent waters admits of the ex technologically capable of carrying out ploitation of the natural resources is legal and, further, that that action can of the said areas? have the side effect of appropriating The Continental Shelf Convention submarine lands to national jurisdiction. confers on the coastal state exclusive The situation under the 1958 con rights over the Continental Shelf for the vention is analogous to that faced by purposes of exploring it and exploiting the international community a few its natural resources and, by implica years ago when a few advanced sta tes tion, for military purposes as well. It were on the threshold of developing provides, however, that this jurisdiction space weapons. Today, marine science shall not extend to the high seas and and technology are opening an entirely airspace above the shelf, a provision new and unclaimed world-a domain which has not induced some states to that not long ago was every bit as abandon their previously claimed 200 remote as the outer planets. Just as mile limits nor deterred others from international machinery was established advancing similar claims. The Continen to define the status of heavenly bodies tal Shelf Convention states that occupa and to prohibit certain military actions, tion or explicit proclamation is not the need has been perceived to regulate required to make the coastal state's the actions of states in exploiting the jurisdiction effective, thus leaving open ocean floor for military and economic the possibility of emplanting secret purposes. facilities while remaining within the This need has been forcefully high letter of the law. lighted by the Maltese Ambassador to The 1958 Continental Shelf Conven the United Nations, Avrid Pardo. In tion was successful in constraining the 1967 he ou tlined to the General As· rising tide of excessive claims to subma sembly his view of the dangers inherent rine lands. But it was a compromise in the lack of international controls over document hammered out over a period the seabed. 3 In addition to citing mili of months to accommodate the interests tary dangers, Ambassador Pardo ex of some 66 states which rarely saw eye pressed concern that the developed to eye on the important issues. It was a countries would appropriate vast areas stopgap measure and, like all stopgap of the seabed, thus shutting out the measures, it has deficiencies. As we have poorer nations from a source of great seen, it leaves the door open for clandes· revenue and an opportunity to upgrade tine military operations on the ocean their technical capabilities. Such devel floor. Its scope is extremely limited. opments, he said, would further increase Further, it fails to set up any interna friction not only among the advanced tional machinery to oversee the opera nations, but between the developed and tion of the convention. less developed countries as well. But the most glaring deficiency of Motivated by his concern over the the Continental Shelf Convention, when military potential of the seabed, but 575 more immediately by the prospect of tional framework in which the seabed raising revenue by developing the ocean arms issue was worked out. There are floor, Pardo proposed that the interna also, of course, a host of informal tional community declare the seabed, relationships and communications chan beyond the limits of national jurisdic nels which are more difficult to discern. tion, to be the common heritage of all Obviously, the superpowers engaged in mankind_ This concept has become a some private consultations with each cen tral theme in discussions of the other and, probably to a lesser extent, seabed issue and has increased the pres with their allies.

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