UNITED NATIONS: A Constitution for the Seas

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SEABED MINING. The treaty sets up a complicated system for both private and international exploitation of the seabed minerals. The mining issue was a sticking point between the developing nations and those industrialized countries that have a technological advantage for such exploration. The treaty provides for a U.N.-chartered mining company, called the Enter prise, to share in exploration and mining. Revenues will be reallocated among developing countries.

FISHING. The treaty awards coastal states absolute control over the fish in their economic zones and the right to sell fishing interests to other nations as they choose.

MARINE ENVIRONMENT. The treaty paves the way for environmental safe guards to protect the seas from contamination, even if it originates in polluted inland waterways. Pollution by ships will be prohibited, and fines levied on violators.

JURISDICTIONAL AGENCIES. The treaty provides for the establishment of two governing units: 1) the International Seabed Authority, which will control and manage the exploration and exploitation of deep seabed resources. In addition to the Enterprise, it will contain a policymaking Assembly and a 36-member executive Council that will make sure the policies comply with the treaty's provisions; 2) a supranational Law of the Sea Tribunal, which will arbitrate disputes.

The long negotiations produced shifting and sometimes curious alignments between nations. The superpowers' mutual interest in preserving maneuverability for their navies kept the U.S. and the Soviet Union cooperating most of the time. They clashed when U.S. negotiators tried to protect the fish stocks that straddle the 200-mile American economic zone from Soviet trawlers that "vacuum" the fish beds. The U.S. apparently succeeded in gaining some protection.

The kaleidoscope of shifting interests made it impossible to sort out the "winners" and "losers." The major industrialized states managed to retain considerable control over underwater oil and gas exploration and most seabed mining, but only at a price. They had to commit themselves to a systematic transfer of technology, as well as compensatory payments to the less developed countries. In some of these provisions, in fact, many observers thought they saw the first glimmerings of the "new economic order" for which many Third World countries have long been clamoring.