The Impact of the Law of the Sea on Ocean Resource Development and Ocean Resource Technology

Abstract

Since 1958 there has been a dramatic and continuous change in the International Law of the Sea and in particular the Law of the Sea as it relates to Ocean Resources and Ocean Technology. These changes in the Law of the Sea were based on predictions and mispredictions by technologists as to the future of resource related technology. The author has been involved in this prediction process in public fora since 1958 and in print since 1966. The time scales of these predictions were made in terms of decades and as a result these predictions and those of his colleagues have already come home to roost. Rationalisation now suggests that the technologists of that decade were not altogether wrong even though the legal community seized upon technical mispredictions and misconceptions as the basis for negotiation of substantial elements of the Law of the Sea. At the first annual meeting of the Law of the Sea Institute oceanic technologist Willard Bascomb stated, “I should perhaps note that in our search for underseas minerals we began at the top of the scale with diamonds and then we descended through platinum and gold, tungsten, tin and we are getting down to the lower levels now. I think we may never get down to manganese nodules”. At the second annual conference of the Institute John Mero (he of deep seabed minerals fame) gave equal prominence to ocean thermal energy (and it’s associated artificial upwelling) and the manganese nodules. He predicted economic viability for one or both in from “ten to twenty years” (i.e. 1976–1986). Students of fact and logic will agree that it is correct to say that both Bascomb and Mero were right.

The community prediction however focussed on manganese nodules and disregarded Deep Ocean Water as the major resource of the open ocean. The legal effect of this misprediction is thoroughly discussed in a previous paper and is not relevant here except as it sets the stage from which we can courageously and rashly make another attempt at predicting the future interaction of the technology of the sea with the Law of the Sea.

Our point of departure, the current status of the law is as clear and well defined as International Law has ever been. For one reason or another nearly every nation of the world including the United States acknowledges that with the exception of Part XI, the words of the UNCLOS III text are a definitive statement of the international law of the sea. If it is true, as this paper hypothesizes, that much of this nearly universal consensus code is incompatible with the technology of today and of the near future, then it would not be rash to suggest that this universal text will require revision. If so it is most appropriate then to examine the current state of technology and the developments in technology which now appear to hold the most promise for humankind.