145. Evening Report to President Reagan1
LAW OF THE SEA CONFERENCE
GROUP OF 77 RESPONSE TO U.S. BOOK OF AMENDMENTS
G77 gave careful reply by De Soto (Peru) the Chairman of the Group of 77, to U.S. amendments package today specifying a number [Page 435] of issues on which they felt U.S. amendments were contrary to the position of the G77. They were silent, however, on some issues of considerable importance to the U.S., including our proposed amendment to obtain blocking power on important Council decisions. The basic thrust of the G77 intervention was that the U.S. book of amendments cannot itself be the basis for negotiation on Part XI2 but also making it clear that the G77 is not closing the door on further negotiation on the underlying issues which have been raised by the U.S. The G77 statement implied that if the U.S. proposals were supported by a group of states they might be viewed even more seriously. Indeed, a group of ten countries—Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden—have undertaken to provide compromise proposals to the United States amendments. They are using President Reagan’s objectives as set forth in his statement of January 29 as the basis for their work. The Conference leadership in its search for an informal intermediary has given encouragement to this effort to develop compromise proposals as a vehicle for further negotiations. We will monitor and guide this effort to the extent possible.
Except for the USSR and China, the remaining speakers this morning were industrialized countries who gave strong support to the U.S. proposals—the FRG, Belgium (presently serving as President of the EC), and the UK. We anticipate similar expressions of support from Japan, France, and Italy who will speak this afternoon.
The USSR and China generally condemned the book of amendments as being non-negotiable, although the tone of their remarks was milder than their previous statements since the announcement of the U.S. LOS policy review.
By the end of today it should be obvious to the G77 that the U.S. has strong support from the major western industrialized countries and that therefore the G77 has very little choice but to find a way to commence active negotiation on the issues raised by the U.S.
- Source: Department of State, Marine Law and Policy Division, Subject and Country Files, Law of the Sea, 1982–1983, Lot 85D105, Law of the Sea—4. Secret. Drafted by the U.S. Law of the Sea Delegation and cleared by Marshall and Eskin on March 16. There is no indication Reagan saw this report.↩
- Part XI established an International Seabed Authority to permit mining and distribute royalties for activity that occurs outside any state’s Exclusive Economic Zone.↩