Historical development to the 1982 United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea and the new international economic order.

Pursuant to a resolution adopted by an overwhelming majority by the U.N.G.A. on the 17th of December 1970 it was decided to convene a new law of the sea in 1973, chief among other factors that would have provoked this decision, fifteen years only after the 1958 Geneva Convention, was the proposal of Ambassador Arvid Padro, the head of Malta delegate on and a Permanent Mission, to the U.N.G.A. to study the peaceful uses of the seabed and ocean floor beyond the limit of National Jurisdiction. By this the objective of giving the seabed and its subsoil the status of a “common heritage of mankind”, and in practical term, this would mean that the area in question belongs to the international agency. All the above were subsequent on the analysis of the new technical, economic, political and military developments to the 22nd session of the U.N.G.A. in 1967; by Dr. Arvid Padro