Law of the Sea

This presentation is intended to discuss where the Law of the Sea Conference now stands. Because your bases of information are so varied, some basic background is in order. The United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea that is now underway began in 1974. It is the third U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea; the first in 1958 developed several conventions, one of the most important of which is the Convention on the Continental Shelf; the second one in 1960 attempted to deal with the high seas and territorial waters, and ended in failure when agreement on a 12-mile territorial sea failed by one vote