community might then end up with nothing. (5) Finally, procedures for settling disputes take on special importance in today's ocean diplomacy simply because the continuing proliferation of ocean activities portends more disputes among more countries over more issues than ever before. Some advanced nations, notably the United States at this point, are responding to the inevitability of extended coastal-state jurisdiction seaward by insisting that all disputes between long-distance and coastal interests within those jurisdictions be subject to compulsory jurisdiction by a specialized tribunal. The United States, not normally a friend of compulsory international jurisdiction, anticipates circumstances in which its nationals, especially its oil drillers and shippers, may be threatened by unilaterally imposed coastal-state restrictions. American negotiators now say that acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction is the cornerstone of the new arrangements being considered, and that most of their own proposals for future ocean policy would be absolutely unacceptable without compulsory jurisdiction. Thus the impression is conveyed that compulsory jurisdiction, like free transit, is a nonnegotiable demand. V The ocean bargaining now underway features and reinforces some of the patterns of international politics emerging in the world at large. We are referring particularly to the disintegration of the cold-war coalitions, the relative rise of non-security issues, the diversification of friendship and adversary relations, and the embittering tension between the have and have-not peoples.1 Nature itself has had the heaviest hand in aligning countries in the ocean debate. Obviously, it makes a considerable difference whether a country borders the ocean or is landlocked, whether its coastline is long or short, and whether its continental margin is rich or barren, broad or narrow. Technology's impact on a country's geological and biological inheritance is an increasingly weighty determinant. Ideological inclination runs a poor third, although the cohesion of the Third World remains an important factor. And alternative visions of a world community are hardly in the picture at all on the eve of the 1974 Conference. 1 See Seyom Brown, "The Changing Essence of Power," Foreign Affairs, January 1973. The broad coalition supporting pervasive national control in wide offshore zones comprises not only most of the coastal states of the Third World but also some members of NATO (Canada, Norway, Iceland), plus Spain, Australia and New Zealand, as well as China, Albania, Yugoslavia and Cuba. The United States, the Soviet Union and France (joined by Japan on some issues) are coalition leaders of the states which want to preserve as much unrestricted maritime freedom as possible. The Soviet Union and Japan, while rivals over the fishing areas in the waters between them, both are long-distance fishing powers, and therefore find themselves aligned in Law of the Sea negotiations against coastal states claiming exclusive fishing zones. The United States is a less consistent coalition partner on this subject, being responsive to its own coastal fishing interests, as well as those of other coastal states with whom the United States is negotiating. When it comes to scientific exploration, the lineup tends to correlate quite consistently with the technological prowess of the countries, with the United States and the Soviet Union partners in championing freedom for ocean research-as they also represent the dominant interests in freedom of transit through international straits. China, only recently a full-fledged participant in ocean politics with her admission to the United Nations, is scoring points by charging collusion between the superpowers and identifying with the coalition of have-nots. The Chinese lose no opportunity to take the podium as spokesmen for militant anti-maritime positions (exclusive jurisdiction out to 200 miles; stringent limitations on scientific exploration), and for substantial redistributions of income and political power (direct control by an international agency over the operations and revenues of deep-sea mining; majority dominance in ocean agencies). But China has found that the putative Third-World coalition is subject to fragmentation on the many issues that lie astride the split between the landlocked states (20 of which have a per capita GNP of less than $500) and the coastal states. Altogether the world has come a very great distance since the Law of the Sea Conference of 1958-1960, when the United States viewed itself as the coalition leader for "free world" geopolitical and commercial interests in a narrow territorial sea, against the illegitimate effort of the "Soviet bloc" to extend coastal sovereignty to 12 miles. A pluralistic world where multi ple and overlapping coalitions are formed on the basis of particular interests rather than ideology is probably safer than a world in which conflicts over particular interests are inflated into grand struggles over competing ways of life. Crosscutting coalitions of the kind now evident in ocean diplomacy are a cushion against total nation-to-nation or bloc-to-bloc hostility, and provide disincentives to the reliance on military force. But whereas the complex intersection of interests in the ocean may be conducive to a stability of sorts by helping to contain conflicts below the level of major interstate hostility, the lack of concepts and mechanisms for attending to the continuing tasks of allocation of resources and resolution of disputes does not augur well for a stable international order over the long run. And a rampant pluralism portends a failure to conserve the resources and ecological health of the sea. Thus the basic directions of ocean diplomacy are disturbing. Nations are greedily extending their assertions of jurisdiction seaward when even on land the system of sovereign states seems to be out of kilter with the increasing ability of politically separated peoples to affect each other's health and welfare. The preparatory period for the 1974 Law of the Sea Conference has been used by many states to grab while the grabbing's good. The prospects appear dim that the Conference will produce the coherence in policy and institutions called for by the comprehensive and interconnected character of ocean problems; nor can one be optimistic that the agreements reached will be sufficiently responsive to the continuing changes in use and knowledge of the sea. Those countries that have seen their preferred outcomes steadily lose support during the lengthy pre-Conference negotiations now seem to be approaching the Conference convinced that international consensus can only damage their interests. And the polarization of maritime haves and have-nots shows every sign of intensifying as the Conference nears, leaving both groups skeptical about the value of the multilateral negotiating process and the concessions it requires. To be sure, even with a complete breakdown in the negotiations we will not be at the edge of the apocalypse. Conflicts of interests still might be accommodated temporarily on a bilateral or limited multilateral basis. Yet, sometime before the end of the century the need for a more coherent global regime for the ocean is bound to become more acute, and the international community will have to try again. Things may need to get worse before they get better. VI The United States-because of its prominence in maritime politics-must accept its share of responsibility for the unpromising state of ocean diplomacy. It has been several years since the American government offered an elaborate seabed resource treaty to internationalize the margins in part (making coastal states "trustees" for the world community) and to fully internationalize the deep ocean. Since then, the Byzantine maneuverings of the key players in U.S. domestic ocean politics have severely undermined the core premises of the original American draft treaty. Not without blame are the oil interests with their warnings that the Administration's announced policy endangered American energy security, and their demands for ironclad international guarantees to protect their offshore operations from coastal-state controls; the domestic coastal fishing interests with their insistence on protection against the incursions of foreign fishing fleets; the scientists who had neither the political clout nor the easily demonstrable identification with national economic objectives, but who decided that it was time to make themselves heard in the name of science; the hard-mineral mining industries with their arguments that internationalization of the deep ocean would threaten their corporate well-being and their competitive position vis-à-vis mining interests in other advanced countries; and the shipping interests with their anxieties over coastal-state interference in their navigation routes. No less severe is the battering that the American stance has suffered on the international scene during these same years. U.S. ocean policy has taken enough twists and turns to offer almost every foreign critic a ready target. At first, the United States unequivocally resisted the very idea of a general and comprehensive law-of-the-sea conference-an attitude it shared with the Soviet Union. Then, after the furious period of domestic bargaining that produced the 1970 Nixon policy, the United States, in announcing that policy, identified itself with the internationalist notions of common heritage associated with the new perception of the ocean as a vast treasurehouse of still unappropriated 2 See Ann Hollick, “Seabeds Make Strange Politics," Foreign Policy, Winter 1972–73. wealth. International reaction to the American démarche was not, as many policy-makers seem to have expected, a rush of praise and gratitude, but a series of stinging criticisms. Former colonial nations bristled at the reincarnation of the "trusteeship" notion. The 1970 U.S draft treaty was portrayed as at best a naïve attempt to place a tidy international organizational structure on top of the chaotic and contentious arena of international ocean politics; and at worst a cynical attempt by the Department of Defense to buy off coastal developing states whose assertiveness might hamper naval mobility. More charitably, the 1970 American policy initiative can be viewed as a gesture that conceded few real interests while rhetorically aligning the national interests with universal order. Recently, international criticism has intensified as American negotiating positions have shifted and hardened-partly to accommodate the demands of various domestic interests, and partly perhaps in a characteristic "bargaining-chip" strategy. Not all of the policy adjustments that U.S. ocean negotiators have made on behalf of domestic interests can be faulted, and not all of the international criticism of U.S. policy positions has been fair. But it is clear that the United States needs badly to reconstitute a working domestic consensus for an ocean policy that serves an enlightened national interest and a broad conception of world community needs. Each special bureaucratic and private interest must not be free to define the national interest as its own. Nor should international policies be judged or defended merely on the basis of how much can be got for how little given. VII The problem for nearly a decade now has not been primarily the pressures of domestic interests, the naïve generosity of the familiar brand of American internationalism that surfaced in the 1970 ocean treaty, or the common hypocrisy of politicians. Rather, American ocean policy-makers have simply failed to be grand enough-both in their definition of international objectives for the ocean, and in their strategies for generating domestic and international support for new policies. Being only halfway committed to only half a loaf is probably the surest way to end up with less than a quarter. Being grand enough requires a consistent eye on the essential implications for world order inherent in the debate over the |