About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

5 Regulation 15 (1981)
Mining the Seas for a Brave New World

handle is hein.journals/rcatorbg5 and id is 317 raw text is: Walter Berns Mining the Seas for a Brave New World UNDER ESTABLISHED international law, we are entitled to mine the seas even as we might fish them. Elliot Richardson him- self, who was President Carter's special repre- sentative for the UN Law of the Sea Conference until October 1, 1980, acknowledges that deep seabed resources may be recovered by any state or its nationals in an exercise of a traditional high-seas freedom. Thus, as matters now stand, without the Law of the Sea Treaty, na- tions can license their own nationals to mine the deep seabed and can reciprocally agree to respect the licenses granted by other nations. Nevertheless, last year the United States came to the very brink of approving the treaty and agreeing to relinquish this right to the interna- tional entity the treaty would create. That poses an obvious question. Why should the United States, possessed of both the legal right to mine the seas and the technologi- cal and financial capabilities needed to do so, cede that right to an authority that will be gov- erned by others? What is striking is how Rich- ardson answers this question. He explains that other countries, and especially the so-called de- veloping or third-world countries, are not hap- py with the current international law on this subject, and that we must therefore acquiesce in their demand that it be superseded by the new treaty. After all, in this one world, they outnumber us. What is also striking to me is that such one-world sentiment continues to exist among us. At a meeting earlier this year, attended by representatives of various organizations that make it their business to follow United Nations affairs, I found-much to my surprise-people who continue to promote the cause of world Walter Berns is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. government. I was surprised not so much by their presence as by the fact of their continued existence. For some reason-with hindsight I now see that it was merely because I had my- self long since ceased to pay any attention to the issue-I had assumed that the world gov- ernment enthusiasts had become discouraged by their evident lack of success and had turned to other good causes (such as saving Planet Earth or Newfoundland's baby seals). I had done my best to discourage them. Back in the 1950s, I had argued that, whatever its constitution or nominal form and regardless of its organizing principle (fear of atomic an- nihilation or some statement of the brother- hood of man), any world government would al- most certainly be a worldwide tyranny. I said it was folly to assume, as the proponents did, that a world government would be a liberal democracy, a judgment supported by the fact that even then there were relatively few liberal democracies in the world. Free government, I wrote, is difficult to establish even under the most propitious circumstances, and without mutual trust, literate populations and, to cite one other condition, a tradition of obedience to the rule of law, it would be impossible to main- ... world government would almost certainly be a worldwide tyranny. tain. This was the argument and I thought it persuasive. But, as an antecedent of subsequent events, it was probably not so persuasive as one episode in the life of what was then the largest of the world-government organizations, the United World Federalists. According to the published account in the REGULATION, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1981 15

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most