Conference proceed, working with a tentative draft of a 3 nm marginal sea that
ultimately did not yield consensus.
Continued failure to delimit the breadth of territorial waters and the material
extent of control over marine resources stirred a move by the President of the United
States, which further promoted the division of the oceans. The Truman Proclamations of 1945, one on fisheries and another on the continental shelf, secured
“property rights” over resources on the seabed and water column of the United
States’ continental shelf, and came as a model to be followed.
16 Back then, several
Latin American states took the same course of action and declared jurisdiction over
their contiguous seas, triggering a phenomenon that Ted McDorman named as “the
great expansion of coastal state jurisdiction.”
17
Less than 30 years later, the expansion of coastal state jurisdiction was codified at
the closing of the III United Nations Conference for the Law of the Sea. A most
relevant factor during the negotiations were the newly politically independent
African and Asian states, which held a point of view differing significantly from
those of their colonial predecessors. It was clear that the developing countries of the
third world, sympathetic to the political orientation of the so-called “Group of 77”,
18
played an important role in UNCLOS III negotiations. Against this background, the
Conference can be associated to the phenomenon of the rise of coastal states, having
fulfilled old demands of exclusive jurisdiction over marine resources and codified
jurisdictional assertions over the oceans. The next item shed light on the definition of
creeping jurisdiction consist and the extent to which it has influenced the current
continental shelf regime.
16 U.S. Presidential Proclamations no. 2667, Policy of the United States with Respect to the Natural
Resources of the Subsoil of the Seabed and the Continental Shelf, and no. 2668, Policy of the United
States with Respect to Coastal Fisheries in Certain Areas of the High Seas, done at Washington,
28 September 1945, 10 FR 12303. Even though the Truman Proclamation is probably the most
known episode of territorial expansion seaward, it was not the first move to advance claims to
maritime areas beyond the territorial sea. Prior developments in this regard include the 1942 Treaty
between the UK and Venezuela Relating to the Submarine Areas of the Gulf of Paria, which divided
the seabed and the subsoil beyond respective territorial seas at the Gulf of Paria, signed at Caracas,
26 February 1942, 205 LNTS 122, and terminated on 23 July 1991. The Treaty was the first one in
the world to delimit the seabed. Another example is the Argentinian Continental Shelf Decree
of 1944.
17 McDorman (1981), p. 2.
18 The Group of 77 advocated a more radical form of the CHM principle, based on the ideology
underpinning the so-called “New International Economic Order”, designed to rebalance economic
relations between industrialized countries of the North and poorly developed states of the South.
6.1 Context of the Practice Known as “Creeping Jurisdiction”
145
ultimately did not yield consensus.
Continued failure to delimit the breadth of territorial waters and the material
extent of control over marine resources stirred a move by the President of the United
States, which further promoted the division of the oceans. The Truman Proclamations of 1945, one on fisheries and another on the continental shelf, secured
“property rights” over resources on the seabed and water column of the United
States’ continental shelf, and came as a model to be followed.
16 Back then, several
Latin American states took the same course of action and declared jurisdiction over
their contiguous seas, triggering a phenomenon that Ted McDorman named as “the
great expansion of coastal state jurisdiction.”
17
Less than 30 years later, the expansion of coastal state jurisdiction was codified at
the closing of the III United Nations Conference for the Law of the Sea. A most
relevant factor during the negotiations were the newly politically independent
African and Asian states, which held a point of view differing significantly from
those of their colonial predecessors. It was clear that the developing countries of the
third world, sympathetic to the political orientation of the so-called “Group of 77”,
18
played an important role in UNCLOS III negotiations. Against this background, the
Conference can be associated to the phenomenon of the rise of coastal states, having
fulfilled old demands of exclusive jurisdiction over marine resources and codified
jurisdictional assertions over the oceans. The next item shed light on the definition of
creeping jurisdiction consist and the extent to which it has influenced the current
continental shelf regime.
16 U.S. Presidential Proclamations no. 2667, Policy of the United States with Respect to the Natural
Resources of the Subsoil of the Seabed and the Continental Shelf, and no. 2668, Policy of the United
States with Respect to Coastal Fisheries in Certain Areas of the High Seas, done at Washington,
28 September 1945, 10 FR 12303. Even though the Truman Proclamation is probably the most
known episode of territorial expansion seaward, it was not the first move to advance claims to
maritime areas beyond the territorial sea. Prior developments in this regard include the 1942 Treaty
between the UK and Venezuela Relating to the Submarine Areas of the Gulf of Paria, which divided
the seabed and the subsoil beyond respective territorial seas at the Gulf of Paria, signed at Caracas,
26 February 1942, 205 LNTS 122, and terminated on 23 July 1991. The Treaty was the first one in
the world to delimit the seabed. Another example is the Argentinian Continental Shelf Decree
of 1944.
17 McDorman (1981), p. 2.
18 The Group of 77 advocated a more radical form of the CHM principle, based on the ideology
underpinning the so-called “New International Economic Order”, designed to rebalance economic
relations between industrialized countries of the North and poorly developed states of the South.
6.1 Context of the Practice Known as “Creeping Jurisdiction”
145