The delegates have departed from Geneva after yet another two months’ session. It would not be realistic to say that this, the third session of the U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has much improved the prospects of a Convention. After six weeks of deadlock, delegations decided upon the expedient of entrusting the chairmen of the three committees comprising the conference with the task of preparing a single negotiating text, reflecting so far as possible all the attitudes expressed. Delegates were thus able to repair home with at least the text of a draft Convention to show for their pains. This unified text will no doubt have persuasive value at the next session, to be held in April and May next year at New York, but delegations were by no means ready to accept even that the chairmen of the committees were best equipped to prepare a negotiating text of this nature, let alone accept the text itself. However, it does enable the outsider to see the direction the conference is taking, and even to form an idea of the future Convention, if any.

At the Caracas session, held from June 20 to Aug. 29, 1974, the “Group of 77” (consisting in fact of 104 developing countries) had much influence. At the Geneva session, that influence was counterbalanced by other groups. The cumbrously entitled “Landlocked and Geographically Disadvantaged States”, consisting of 49 members, sought to oppose the Group of 77 which was dominated by coastal states. The Evensen Group, taking its name from the head of the Norwegian delegation, consisted of a restricted group of heads of delegations seeking solutions within their own small somewhat elitist but representative group. It was hoped that these would prove acceptable in the wider arena of the conference. Not least, the Member States of the European Community held 50 or more meetings during the two months’ session, directed at co-ordinating the Community attitude to the main issues.

The task of the First Committee was to study the question of exploitation of the seabed. Its work fell into two parts: firstly, the legal regime governing exploration and exploitation and secondly, the institutional machinery by which such activities could be carried out. Two solutions were advanced, the one proposing direct exploitation by an international authority and the other, exploitation by the states themselves or their companies. From this thesis and antithesis grew the synthesis of joint ventures, by which the international authority would either participate with the states or companies, or share with them areas for exploitation in the international zone. Under the latter system any state or company requesting a contract for exploitation would have to name two geographical areas, one of which would be granted to it by lot and the other of which would return to the authority for the purpose of direct exploitation.

The Group of 77 favoured exploitation by the international authority, or at least a system giving substantial powers of control to the latter, even to the extent of granting