governing the seas, although few treaties were actually formalized, and the gener-
ally accepted limit of a three- to four-mile territorial sea was maintained. However,
the relative stability brought about by this arrangement was shaken by the so-called
Truman Proclamation of 1945, in which the United States asserted sovereign
control over the resources of the continental shelf.
The Truman Proclamation set in motion a cycle of claims by various countries
regarding control of their coastlines and adjacent waters. Some states rushed to
declare a territorial sea far greater in extent than any previously recognized, in
some cases reaching 200 nautical miles from the shoreline. Others extended
control to 12 miles and some retained the old limit of 3 miles. The confusion
and friction resulting from such conflicting claims spurred the newly established
United Nations to attempt a universallyrecognized codification of the Law of
the Sea. This was especially important because it had become evident that ocean-
going commerce and natural resourceslying below the water’s surface were
becoming increasingly vital to the economy of many countries. Accordingly, the
United Nations convened an international conference in 1956 with the goal of
establishing and formalizing a body of law that would apply globally to all mari-
time states. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS
I as it became known, was more successful at creating a code for governing the
territorial sea than previous efforts. Four treaties addressing issues of the territorial
sea, fishing rights, exploitation of the continental shelf, and conduct on the high
sea were ratified, and all went into effect between 1962 and 1966. The larger ques-
tion of the acceptable extent of a territorial sea remained unresolved, however.
Most countries by the mid-1960s were claiming a zone of 12 nautical miles, but
some countries in Latin America and elsewhere continued to claim sovereignty
over a region 200 miles from their coastline.
A second convention was held in 1960, UNCLOS II, in an effort to address
some of the issues that remained unresolved from the previous meeting. This
conference lasted only six weeks, however, and accomplished little except to
reinforce the status quo. Issues of legal jurisdiction and use and sovereignty con-
cerning the territorial sea remained arbitrary and unclear, and in 1973 UNCLOS III
wasconvenedinanefforttofinallyresolvethemostpressingofthesematters.
Although it required negotiations lasting almost a decade, in 1982 the conference
proposed a broad treaty that offered international standards for claims and use of the
seas and oceans. A number of important components of the Law of the Sea were
resolved in the treaty. A limit to the sovereign territorial sea was set at 12 nautical
miles, but a “contiguous zone” of an additional 12 miles was allowed, providing
limited legal control over the environment, the right to collect taxes and customs
duties, etc. Rules governing the use ofstraits, passages and canals,particularly
in so-called archipelagic waters, were promulgated, as well as a new concept, the
Law of the Sea 203