One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
| Author | Roderick C. Ogley |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711787600500403 |
| Published date | 01 October 1976 |
| Date | 01 October 1976 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1094
ONE
STEP
FORWARD,
TWO
STEPS
BACK
by
RODERICK
C.OGLEY
&dquo;Are
we
nearly
there?&dquo;
Alice
managed
to
pant
out
at
last.
&dquo;Nearly
there! &dquo;
the
Queen
repeated.
&dquo;Why,
we
passed
it
ten
minutes
ago!
~’aster! ...&dquo;
And
they
went
so
fast
that
at
last
they
seemed
to
skim
through
the
air,
hardly
touching
the
ground
with
their
feet,
till
suddenly
just
as
Alice
was
getting
quite
exhausted,
they
stopped,
and
she
found
herself
sitting
on
the
ground
breathless
and
giddy.
The
Queen
propped
her
up
a,gain
and
said
kindly,
&dquo;You
may
rest
a
little
now.&dquo;
Alice
looked
round
her
in
great
surprise.
&dquo;Why,
I
do
believe
we’ve
been
under
this
tree
the
whole
time!
Everything’s
just
as
it
was!
&dquo;
&dquo;Of
course
it
is,&dquo;
said
the
Queen;
&dquo;what
would
you
have
it?&dquo;
&dquo;Well,
in
our
country,&dquo;
said
Alice,
still
panting
a
little,
&dquo;you’d
generally
get
to
somewhere
eIse - if
you
ran
very
fast
for
a
long
time,
as
we’ve
been
doing.&dquo;
&dquo;A
slow
sort
of
country!
&dquo;
said
the
Queen.
&dquo;Now
her,
you
see,
it
takes
all
the
running
you
can
do
to
keep
in
the
same
place.
If
you
want
to
get
somewhere
else,
you
must
run
at
least
twice
as
fast
as
that!
&dquo;
I
For
those
who
would
like
to
see
the
exploitation
of
the
resources
of
the
sea-bed
beyond
national
jurisdiction
treated
as
the
&dquo;Common
Heritage
of
Mankind&dquo;
and
subjected
to
the
control of
an
international
authority - the
avowed
aim
of
prac-
tically
every
state
in
the
world
since,
at
latest,
the
first
sub-
stantive
session
of
the
Third
United
Nations
Conference
on
the
Law
of
the
Sea
(UNCLOS
III)
in
1974
at
Caracas1-
the
two
New
York
sessions
of
this
year
(the
Fourth
and
the
Fifth
of
the
Conference)
have
proved
trebly
frustrating.
The
Single
Nego-
tiating
Text
(SNT)
produced by
the
chairman
of
the
First
Committee,
Paul
Engo
of
the
Cameroun
Republic,
at
the
end
of
the
Third
(Geneva)
Session
in
1975 has
not
been
accepted
by
the
United
States;
the
Revised
Single
Negotiating
Text
(RSNT)
produced
by
the
same
chairman,
extensively
modified
1
Some
would
say
since
the
General
Assembly’s
unopposed
Declaration
of
1970,
but
the
pointed
abstensions
of
the
Soviet
bloc
then
showed
that
at
that
time
the
consensus
was
by
no means
overwhelming.
1095
in
the
direction
of
meeting
the
demands
of
the
United
States
and
other
developed
states,
has
not
been
accepted
by
the
Group
of
77.
The
First
Committee
spent
the
entire
Fifth
Session
dead-
locked,
in
essence,
on
the
questions
of
&dquo;who
shall
exploit
the
Area&dquo;
and
the
&dquo;basic
conditions
of
exploitation&dquo;.
The
structure
of
the
authority
was
discussed
hardly
at
all,
at
either
session.
This
arid
outcome
of
seven
weeks
of
work
at
the
latest
session
(August
2nd
to
September
17th,
1976)
would
be
dis-
appointing
enough
on
an
issue,
like
disarmament,
in
which
expectations
are
low,
and
where
the
world
does
not
have
before
it,
fieetin~gly,
some
unique
opportunity
which,
once
lost,
may
be
lost
forever.
Governments
cannot
afford
to
spend
unlimited
time
and
money
attending
international
gatherings
that
produce
no
results,
even
&dquo;lovable&dquo;
ones
(as
the
First
Committee
was
described
by
the
US
representative
on
it,
Leigh
Ratiner).
It
acquires
an
added
layer
of
frustration
from
the
fact
that the
bleak
confrontation
of
developed
and
developing
states
at
the
Fifth
Session
was
in
total
contrast
to
the
accommodating
and
businesslike
spirit
of
its
predecessor,
where
in
early
April,
at
least,
when
I
was
there,
and
also,
by
all
accounts,
thereafter,
it
really
did
seem
as
if
compromises
were
being
hammered
out
which
would
form
the
basis
of
a
new
Sea-bed
Authority.
For
those
who
had
been
at
the
Fourth
Session,
the
impasse
at
the
Fifth
contradicted
all
expectation.
It
was
not
merely
that
the
Committee,
having
agreed
some
issues
at
the
one,
failed
to
sustain
its
impetus
by
agreeing
to
a
commensurate
number
of
further
issues
at
the
other.
It
was
that
issues
on
which
an
in-
formal
agreement
was
thought
to
exist
were
re-opened;
the
promise
of
the
earlier
session
proved,
or
at
least
appeared,
entirely
insubstantial -
&dquo;a
goodly
apple,
rotten
at
the
core&dquo;.
More
depressing
still,
the
lack
of
progress
at
the
Fifth
Session
raises
the
question
of
whether
the
forces
in
Congress,
and
outside,
demanding
unilateral
action
by
the
United
States
can
any
longer
be
resisted.
Hitherto,
when
American
commen-
tators
argued
that
some
kind
of
&dquo;Deep
Seabed
Hard
Minerals
Bill&dquo;
was
bound
to
pass
Congress,
and
that
the
best
thing
to
do
was
to
make
it
as
palatable
as
possible,
they
were
open
to
the
same
dishonourable
suspicions
that
attach
to
too
compliant
a
victim
of
alleged
rape.
There
is
a
point
before
which
&dquo;realistic&dquo;
acceptance
of
the
inevitability
of
a
supposedly
distasteful
out-
come
casts
doubt
on
how
distasteful
that
outcome
actually
is.
Yet
at
the
end
of
the
Fifth
Session,
the
United
States
delegation,
having
for
the
most
part
stuck
dourly
to
its
position
and
given
nothing
away
in
concessions,
and
even,
at
points,
having
replaced
its
earlier
proposals
with
others
manifestly
less
likely
to
com-
mand
acceptance,
was
being
accused
by
more
than
twenty
Senators
of
having
excessively
compromised
United
States’
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