Negotiations Between The United States And The Seabed Treaty

With maritime problems attracting more and more countries’ attention, the international system of ocean and seabed has become a hot spot in today’s academic research. Seabed Treaty of 1971 concluded through multilateral arms control negotiations was important to the international system of ocean and seabed. This article reviewed the economic, military and international law background of the seabed arms control problems. It also focused on the US and USSR basic position on the seabed arms control problems and how to negotiate.In the process of Seabed Treaty negotiations, both the Johnson Administration and the Nixon Administration supported “the seabed denuclearization”, but the Soviet Union government initially insisted “the seabed demilitarization” based on “12-miles”as the outer limit of the treaty. Through negotiations, the two sides reached a compromise and claimed to realize limited “the seabed denuclearization” based on“12-miles” as the outer limit of the treaty to resolve the pressure of international public opinion and effectively maintain their countries’ marine interests. Although Seabed Treaty has not fundamentally prevent the nuclear arms race undersea, but it still played an important role on nuclear nonproliferation and building the the international system of ocean and seabed.