Ambassador STEVENSON. I think so.

Mr. COHEN. Let me read it to you.

Because of their potentially severe impact on foreign nations fishing over our Continental Shelf, these far-reaching new measures will go into effect only on December 5, 1974, after a 90-day grace period to enable affected nations to adjust their fishing methods or to conclude agreements further protecting our living

resources.

Now, this committee has traveled around various parts of the country listening to testimony from fishermen and one consistent theme that seems to be coming through is that these foreign nations have been violating existing agreements with the size of their nets and the mesh and so forth not being enforced and now we are going to adopt new, far-reaching measures to go into effect 90 days from now to give these nations an opportunity to adjust to it.

I want to know how you justify that to the American fishermen. Ambassador STEVENSON. You have two separate questions; one is the enforcement of the bilateral agreements and I certainly agree that enforcement of those agreements should be pushed to the maximum.

I think what Professor Moore was talking about, though, was in addition to the obligations under existing bilateral agreements that we were going to impose under the provisions of the Continental Shelf Convention, certain additional requirements and we would seek to negotiate further bilaterals with those countries as to the means of implementing them and, therefore, the 90-day period would serve to give us the opportunity to perhaps get more effective bilaterals.

Now, you are quite right the bilaterals themselves are not any good if we do not enforce them, but I think it is implicit in what he said and I heard some of his earlier testimony that the Coast Guard will enforce not only the existing bilaterals, but any new bilaterals that come out of these negotiations as well as taking the additional enforcement action contemplated in his letter to Senator Magnuson.

Mr. DOWNING. Will the gentleman suspend?

The Chair has just learned that the members are supposed to be on the floor now so under these circumstances will you continue your questioning at 2 this afternoon?

Mr. COHEN. Yes.

Mr. DOWNING. The committee will adjourn to meet again at 2 this afternoon.

[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 2 p.m. of the same day.]

AFTERNOON SESSION

Mr. CLARK [presiding]. The committee will please come to order. When we left off this morning Ambassador Stevenson was testifying and a lot of questions were asked during the latter part of the meeting that should have been going to Mr. Moore.

I am going to ask Prof. John Norton Moore, the Chairman of the National Security Council Interagency Task Force on the Law of the Sea, and the Deputy Special Representative of the President for the Law of the Sea Conference to come to the witness table and give his statement and then we will have questions for both of you.

John if you will, you may start your statement and give the names of those accompanying you.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN NORTON MOORE, CHAIRMAN, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE ON THE LAW OF THE SEA AND DEPUTY SPECIAL ASSISTANT OF THE PRESIDENT FOR THE LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCE, ACCOMPANIED BY AMBASSADOR JOHN R. STEVENSON, SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PRESIDENT FOR THE LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCE, DEPARTMENT OF STATE; CAPT. PHILLIP A. HOGUE, DEPUTY CHIEF, OFFICE OF OPERATIONS, U.S. COAST GUARD; AND COMDR. JOHN B. LYNN, CHIEF, MARITIME LAWS AND TREATIES BRANCH, U.S. COAST GUARD

Mr. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your great assistance and that of Congresswoman Sullivan and the other members of this committee and staff who have provided very great help to the Law of the Sea Delegation during these negotiations for the Law of the Sea Conference.

I would also very much like to thank Congresswoman Sullivan for her very kind remarks this morning.

I am accompanied this afternoon by a number of persons from the executive branch who are experts on particular questions that might be raised.

On my immediate right is the Honorable Howard Pollock, the Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mr. CLARK. John, if you do not mind I would like to say I am happy to see Howard here and I know up on the Hill he is regarded as one of the greatest.

Mr. POLLOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You are very kind.

Mr. MOORE. We thought the best defense today, Mr. Chairman, was to bring along one of your own.

We also have with us Mr. William Sullivan, the Acting Coordinator of Ocean Affairs of the Department of State as well as Capt. Philip A. Hogue and Comdr. John B. Lynn of the Coast Guard to respond to some of the questions concerning enforcement and enforcement studies. Like Ambassador Stevenson, I have prepared remarks today but I would prefer with your consent, Mr. Chairman, to merely place those in the record and to discuss the issues informally with this committee. Mr. CLARK. If there is no objection, the subject matter will be put into the record in its entirety at this point.

[The full prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]

STATEMENT BY HON. JOHN NORTON MOORE, CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE ON THE LAW OF THE SEA AND DEPUTY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PRESIDENT FOR THE LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCE

Madam Chairman, it is a particular pleasure to appear before this Committee to discuss the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and measures to protect United States fisheries. In doing so, I am conscious that the choices which must be made by this Committee are of fundamental importance to United States oceans policy. A number of bills being considered by this Committee raise

questions deeply affecting the foreign relations of the Nation as well as our fishery and other oceans interests. They also pose a stark choice for our policy toward an area covering more than two-thirds of the surface of the earth. Is United States oceans policy to be pursued through cooperative efforts at international agreement? Or is it to be pursued through unilateral assertions of jurisdiction risking an irreversible pattern of conflicting national claims?

In meeting with this Committee, I am appreciative of the outstanding service the Chairman and members of this Committee have continually rendered to the Nation in fishery and other ocean matters. I am also appreciative of the very real threats to coastal and anadromous species off our coasts. This increased pressure is part of a global trend which in the absence of an adequate international legal framework for fisheries jurisdiction has in many areas led to over-exploitation. The depletion of the haddock stock off our Atlantic coast and the halibut stock off our Pacific Northwest are examples.

The principal problem in the present pattern of international fisheries jurisdiction is that management jurisdiction does not generally coincide with the range of the stocks. As such, any effort at sound management and conservation confronts the classic "common pool problem" similar to that experienced in the early days of the east Texas oil fields. That is, in the absence of agreement, it is not in the interest of any producer acting alone to conserve the resource. The solution to this common pool problem in fisheries is broadly based international agreement providing coastal states with management jurisdiction over coastal and anadromous species with highly migratory species managed by appropriate regional or international organizations.

For the first time in the history of oceans law, it is realistic to expect such a broadly based agreement covering fisheries jurisdiction. After lengthy preparatory work in the United Nations Seabed Committee, the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea has completed its first substantive session held in Caracas, Venezuela from June 20 to August 29. If other issues are satisfactorily resolved, the Conference offers every promise of providing the jurisdictional framework for solving our coastal and anadromous fisheries problems.

The strong trend in the Conference is for acceptance of a 200-mile economic zone providing coastal states with jurisdiction over coastal fisheries in a 200-mile area off their coast. There is also considerable support for host state control of anadromous species and growing support for special provisions on international and regional management of highly migratory species. In this connection, the United States Delegation has indicated that we can accept and indeed would welcome agreement on the 200-mile economic zone as part of a satisfactory overall treaty which also protects our other oceans interests, including unimpeded transit of straits used for international navigation.

It is also realistic to expect such a broadly based oceans treaty in the near future. The General Assembly Resolution which established the Law of the Sea Conference provided that any subsequent session or sessions necessary after the Caracas session would be held no later than 1975. Pursuant to this schedule, the Caracas session of the Conference agreed on a second session to be held in Geneva from March 17 to May 3-10, 1975. It also agreed that the formal signing session will take place in Caracas, with July and August 1975 discussed in this regard. We believe that it is important to adhere to this Conference schedule.

Even on this schedule, it is, of course, also important that we prevent further depletion of coastal and anadromous stocks off our coasts before the new Law of the Sea Treaty comes into force. We are taking a number of important steps to meet this need.

First, we have strengthened both bilateral and multilateral agreements with nations whose nationals conduct fishing operations off our coast. In the northwest Atlantic Ocean, for example, we have this year instituted for the first time a comprehensive management regime for the entire biomass in the region off the United States coast. This involves quotas allocated nationally for each individual species or group as well as overall quotas for all fish in this region, coupled with a series of additional conservation measures such as closed areas and seasons and gear restrictions. These new measures also take into account economic problems facing American fishermen. While there are problems in implementation associated with the introduction of such a new and far-reaching management system, we believe that significant progress has been made in the northwest Atlantic.

In addition, we have bilateral fisheries agreements with several countries for this region as well as for the areas off our Pacific coast and Alaska. The United States is actively pursuing conservation initiatives in all the fisheries commissions of

which we are members to encourage further steps that can be taken to control fishing in a rational manner and remedy overfishing where that has been experienced.

Within the next two months meetings for this purpose will be held by the InterAmerican Tropical Tuna Commission, the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission, the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Bilateral discussions or renegotiations of existing agreements will also be held starting in November and extending into early 1975. We expect these multilateral and bilateral meetings to achieve greater conservation of the resources off the coasts of the United States and a more rational and equitable regime for American fishermen in all of the areas involved. In this regard, we intend to maintain that, at the least, the relevant principles regarding conservation and allocations to protect coastal State fishermen enunciated by the International Court of Justice in the Iceland Fisheries Cases should be applied in these new agreements.

For the information of the Committee, I am submitting for the record a more detailed report prepared by the National Marine Fisheries Service on the present condition of the coastal and anadromous stocks off our coasts and efforts to provide increased interim protection to those stocks. I am accompanied by the Honorable Howard Pollock, Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce and Mr. William Sullivan, Acting Coordinator of Ocean Affairs, Department of State, who are prepared to answer questions on these and future efforts to protect the coastal and anadromous stocks off our coasts in the interim period before a new Law of the Sea Treaty is signed.

Second, we have proposed that the fisheries as well as deep seabed provisions of the new Law of the Sea Treaty should be applied on a provisional basis. That is, they should be applied after signature of the new treaty but before waiting for the process of ratification to bring the treaty into full legal effect. Provisional application is a recognized concept of international law and our proposal was favorably received in the Law of the Sea negotiations. We will, of course, consult closely with the Congress as to how provisional application should be effectuated and in doing so will shortly consult with this Committee.

Third, we recently announced and have notified potentially affected nations of tough new enforcement measures to provide increased protection for the stocks off our coasts until the new Law of the Sea Treaty can be fully applied. These new enforcement procedures will substantially tighten our control over the incidental catch of living resources from the United States continental shelf. For the first time, they permit boarding of foreign fishing vessels using bottom gear (including bottom tending trawls) which would normally result in the catch of living resources of the U.S. continental shelf. In addition, they will require all nations whose vessels use such gear to enter into agreements with the United States for the protection of the living resources of our continental shelf. By controlling bottom trawling, these new agreements for the protection of our continental shelf fishery resources should aslo have real benefit for the protection of other stocks, such as haddock, halibut, Alaska pollock, and yellowtail flounder.

Attached is the letter to Senator Magnuson setting out the new enforcement measures. Because of their potentially severe impact on foreign nations fishing over our continental shelf, these far-raeching new measures will go into effect only on December 5, 1974, after a 90-day grace period to enable affected nations to adjust their fishing methods or to conclude agreements further protecting our living resources.

These new procedures will provide substantial increased protection to our valuable living resources. We believe that they are entirely justified by existing international law and that jurisdiction over the living resources of the continental shelf carries with it the right to require other states to enter into agreements for the protection of such resources if they are taken during fishing for non-shelf stocks as well as if the taking of such shelf resources is intentional.

Fourth, an expanded enforcement effort such as that envisaged in the plan recently submitted by the Coast Guard to the Coast Guard Subcommittee would, if adopted, also help ensure compliance with existing regulations and assist in the transition from the present limited fisheries jurisdiction to the broader jurisdiction which would result from a successful Law of the Sea Conference. I am accompanied by Captain Philip A. Hogue, Deputy Chief, Office of Operations, United States Coast Guard.

Finally, the Executive Branch is studying appropriate legislation to provide compensation for fishermen whose gear is damaged off our coasts by the factions

of a foreign fishing vessel or its crew. Any legislation would of course structure the mechanism by which compenastion is provided to assure that only legitimate claims are compensated.

These interim measures, taken together, should provide substantial additional protection of the fishery stocks off our coasts until a new Law of the Sea Treaty can be concluded. At the same time, the Executive Branch is strongly opposed to the enactment of legislation such as H.R. 8665 which would unilaterally extend the United States fisheries contiguous zone from 12 to 200 miles in a mistaken effort to respond to our interim problems. Enactment of this legislation would not satisfactorily resolve our fisheries problems, would at most merely anticipate a result likely to emerge in a matter of months from a successful Law of the Sea Conference, and would be seriously harmful to United States fishery and oceans interests in at least seven principal ways.

First, unilateral action extending national jurisdiction in the oceans is harmful to overall United States oceans interests and as such we have consistently protested any extension of fishery or other jurisdiction beyond recognized limits. A unilateral extension of jurisdiction for one purpose will not always be met by a similar extension but rather may encourage broader claims which could have serious implications, for example, with respect to our energy needs in transportation of hydrocarbons, our defense and national security interests in the unimpeded movement of vessels and aircraft on the world's oceans, or our interest in the protection of marine scientific research rights in the oceans. Because of our broad range of oceans interests and our leadersihp role in the world, an example of unilateral action by the United States would have a particularly severe impact upon the international community which could quickly lead to a crazy quilt of uncontrolled national claims.

Indeed it was the threat of just such a result with its open-ended invitation to conflicts and pressures on vital U.S. interests that led to a decision in two prior Administrations, at the highest level of Government, that U.S. oceans interests and the stability of the world community would best be served by a broadly supported international agreement. This Administration strongly agrees with that judgment. Soundings from our embassies and at the Caracas session of the Law of the Sea Conference indicate that the possibility of unilateral claims by others is not merely an abstract concern should this legislation pass. This Committee, with its interest in the merchant marine and oceans research interests of the United States, knows well the great threat posed to these interests should unilateralism overtake our ability to reach a comprehensive oceans agreement.

Second, enactment of legislation such as H. R. 8665 could be seriously damaging to important foreign policy objectives of the United States. Unilateral extension of our fisheries jurisdiction could place the Nation in a confrontation with the Soviet Union, Japan, and other distant water fishing nations fishing off our coasts. These nations strongly maintain the right to fish in high seas areas and are unlikely to acquiesce in unilateral claims, particularly during the course of sensitive law of the sea negotiations in which they have substantial interests at stake. The implications for detente and our relations with Japan are evident. In fact, both the Soviet Union and Japan have already expressed serious concern over this legislation to our principal negotiators at the Law of the Sea Conference.

Similarly, unilateral extension of our fisheries jurisdiction coupled with reliance on the Fisherman's Protective Act to protect threatened distant water fishing interests of the United States seem certain to assure continuation of disputes with other coastal states off whose coasts our nationals fish.

It is strongly in the national interest to encourage cooperative solutions to oceans problems rather than a pattern of competing national claims. A widely agreed comprehensive Law of the Sea Treaty will promote development of ocean uses and will reduce the chances of ocean disputes leading to conflict among nations. If these interests seem too theoretical, we might recall the recent "Cod War" between the United Kingdom and Iceland which resulted from a more modest Icelandic claim of a 50-mile fisheries contiguous zone.

Third, a unilateral extension of our fisheries contiguous zone from 12 to 200 miles would not be compatible with existing international law, and particularly with the Convention on the High Seas to which the United States and forty-five other nations are party. The United States has consistently protested any extension of fisheries jurisdiction beyond 12 miles as a violation of international law. And the International Court of Justice held only last month in two cases arising from the "Cod War" that the 50-mile unilateral extension of fisheries jurisdiction by Iceland was not consistent with the rights of the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany.