The law of the sea: some reflections on Caracas

Extract

The biggest and most complicated international conference of all time began in Caracas in mid 1974 and after a ten weeks session was adjourned to meet again in Geneva for a similar period in 1975. The purpose of the conference is to recodify the Law of the Sea, with the aim of reconciling the competing maritime interests of nations and restraining growing international tension over the uses of the sea and the seabed. It is indicative of the pace of the world we live in that this vast diplomatic undertaking has been found necessary only fifteen years after the 1958 Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea. That Conference thought it was codifying and stabilizing the rules of law for a long period, if not in perpetuity, in respect of the freedom of the high seas, the rights of coastal States in the territorial sea and to the continental shelf, and conservation of fisheries.