Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, United Nations and General International Matters, Volume II

427. Letter From the Under Secretary of State (Dillon) to Representative Thomas M. Pelly¹

Washington, April 25, 1960.

Dear Mr. Pelly: I have read with interest your letter of April 19, 1960,² also signed by Senator Magnuson, concerning the Law of the Sea Conference, and I appreciate the frank expression of your views.

As you know, the overriding objective of the United States at the Second Law of the Sea Conference must be to obtain agreement on a relatively narrow territorial sea. At the same time, our Delegation is under instruction to strive for an agreement providing the maximum protection possible for United States fishery interests. To achieve these objectives, a joint United States-Canadian proposal has been worked out which the Delegation believed could obtain approval in the Committee of the Whole and draw enough votes away from proposals for a twelve-mile territorial sea to enable them to be defected.

The estimates made by the United States Delegation in its efforts to attract a following sufficient to attain a two-thirds vote have proven to be very accurate. The United States-Canadian proposal was the only one to receive a majority of the votes cast in the Committee. As the balloting was very close, the Delegation was still faced with the need for extra votes to gain the required two-thirds in the plenary session.

At the same time, there has been a strong and growing trend at the Conference for a provision according further rights over fishing to coastal countries in special situations. Some proposals have been put forward which would recognize the preferential rights of a coastal state in this regard and would allow it to move unilaterally to claim such rights in the first instance, and which would accord special rights for situations defined so loosely that it would be difficult to challenge the validity of unilateral action. We therefore believe it necessary to hand off extremist proposals and to retain and encourage support for a six-plus-six formula. For example, a preferential rights proposal submitted by Iceland which was so broad that it could not obtain fishing-nation support nevertheless did achieve a substantial majority of the votes cast in the Committee. Furthermore, an amendment to the United States-Canadian joint proposal which we consider extremely dangerous was submitted by Argentina. It failed to pass by only four votes, with the entire Soviet bloc abstaining. The Soviet delegate now, however, has urged the Argentine representative to reintroduce this amendment in plenary, and has offered Soviet support. The Argentinians have been dissuaded from doing so only by the introduction of a more limited proposal by Brazil, Cuba, and Uruguay,³ put forward as an addition to the joint United States-Canadian proposal. This package proposal is acceptable to Canada, the United Kingdom, and other fishing nations, as well as to most Latin American countries. The United States Delegation believes it essential for the United States to support this combined proposal to achieve Conference success on the best terms possible for United States interests. We have therefore authorized the Delegation to support this package proposal. Its text is enclosed.

We recognize that the amendment could pose further problems for United States fishing interests. A close study of it, however, will reveal how carefully qualified it is, in order to reduce to a minimum the possibility of its working any hardship on our industry. It does not, for example, give coastal states preferential rights, but only the faculty for claiming such rights; and the claim would have to be scientifically established before and approved by the kind of special commission which was provided for in the high seas fisheries convention at the last Geneva Conference, largely at our insistence. In some respects, moreover, it would offer legal protection that does not now exist for a fishing state. During the past few years, as we know, the trend has been for coastal states to attempt unilaterally to establish preferential rights in large areas of the high seas, and a rather far-reaching resolution supporting the idea of such rights was adopted at the last Conference. Consequently, approval of the proposed amendment would mean that preferential rights would exist only after a bona fide need has been established in a particular case through the mechanism which the amendment provides. For the immediate future, it should set at rest the efforts made for the extreme proposals.

Finally, I would like to point out that if the Conference on the Law of the Sea should fail to reach agreement, there is every reason to believe that a number of other countries would now freely proclaim a territorial sea extending well beyond six miles, with fishing jurisdiction over a wide area. Their proclamations could be justified on the basis that proposals for a narrower territorial sea and fishery zone had received insufficient support at the Conference to warrant being considered as a principle of international law.

I assure you that we continue to have the interests of the United States fishing industry fully in mind, both here and in Geneva.

Sincerely yours,

Douglas Dillon⁴

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 399.731/4–1960. Drafted in U/LS and cleared in draft with Blow, Pender, EUR, and H. An almost identical letter, which was attached to the source text, was sent to Senator Magnuson.
2. Document 418.
3. For text of this proposal, see U.N. doc. ACONF.19/8, p. 173.
4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature. The enclosed text of the U.S.-Canadian proposal as amended by the proposal of Brazil, Cuba, and Uruguay is not printed.