A/35/PV.113 General Assembly

20.  Third United"Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (concluded) I. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The Assembly has before it for its consideration this afternoon a draft decision contained in document A/35/L.60/Rev.l, concerning the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. The report of the Fifth Committee on the administrative and financial implications of that draft decision is to be found in document A/35/804. As no vote has been requested, may I take it that the General Assembly adopts the draft decision contained in document A/35/L.60/Rev.l ? The draft decision was adopted (decision 35/452). 2. Mr. KOROMA (Sierra Leone): This session of the General Assembly has been reconvened to vote finan- cial provisions of over $2 million for a resumed tenth session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. 3. If the aim of such a resumed session were the translating of agreed proposals into draft articles, if we did not have to brace ourselves for the prospect of reopening negotiations on areas on which agreement had already been reached, my delegation would have looked forward with enthusiasm and hope to a resumed session, and indeed would have voted enthusiastically in favour of the amount whose approval has now been asked. 4. However, given the antediluvian attitude demon- strated during the session that has just concluded, and. the attempt to extend such an attitude to the entire draft convention itself, my delegation is constrained to express its serious misgivings about the utility of a resumed session. To say this is not to question the need for such a session but to express my delegation's serious concern-and I hope I will be proved wrong- NEW YORK that once again almost an entire session of the Con- ference will be spent without profit while waiting for one delegation to resume serious negotiations. 5. Therefore, without intending to be judgemental, we submit that this is an unsatisfactory situation. The law ofthe sea negotiations have been going on for more than a decade, and last year a major breakthrough was achieved. It was then hoped, and indeed expected, that in the spring of this year the remaining outstanding issues would be resolved so that the Conference itself could be wound up. The Secretary-General, in his report on the work of the Organization [A/35/1], acknowledged this fact. and made reference to the encouraging progress that was made by the Con- ference during its ninth session. It was in the light of such progress that the Conference itself recommended a tenth and final session in the spring of this year, during which the Conference had hoped to complete negotiations. But no such progress was made, hence the request for appropriations for a resumed session. This lack of progress was inevitable given the attempt to scuttle the Conference itself. 6. Even more ominous is the fact that for the first time since the Conference started, the consensus-the underlying philosophy-of the Conference that the resources of the sea-bed beyond national jurisdictions belonged to all countries, industrialized and devel- oping, is being challenged in one form or another. But we must warn that any attempt to exclude the developing nations from sharing in the wealth and resources of the ocean will be not only intolerable but indeed unacceptable. The developing countries are entitled to an equitable proportion of the resources of the ocean. Furthermore, any attempt to set up a treaty regime by a few industrialized countries to exploit the resources of the ocean cannot be recog- nized by the overwhelming majority of States and the international community. On the other hand, the over- whelming majority of States will continue with the present effort, and within the framework of the present Conference, to complete an international convention on the law of the sea that will be both universal and acceptable to all States. 7. Therefore, the only reasonable justification for this new appropriation, and indeed the only reasonable solution of what is fast becoming an impasse, is for all delegations to reaffirm their adherence to agreed positions and to negotiate in good faith with a view to finding a comprehensive solution of the still out- standing issues. But to adopt unilateral solutions which serve the interests of only one State or a few States or of various interest groups will not lead to agreed solutions. Such an attitude will not jl.stify the amount that we are now being asked to provide for the resumed session.