International Seabed Institution And North-South Relations

Abundant mineral resources have long been ignored in the seabed. However, as their value becomes more apparent, the international society has aroused a strong interest in these urgently-needed though distant resources. In order to distribute and explore these resources, both developing countries and developed countries began to negotiate on the design of seabed system according to their group and national interests. Through conflict and compromise, the international seabed system was finally settled on. Developing countries viewed the establishment of a fair and reasonable submarine system as an inseparable part of the new international economic order, while developed countries gave more concern to convenient and efficient access to seabed resources. The controversy over the seabed system not only triggered the conference of the Third United Nations Marine, but also ran through the whole convention. And even after the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as "the Convention"), the debate still went on.In1967, Arvid Pardo put forward the principle of common heritage of mankind " in his famous "Pado Declaration", thus opening the prelude to the international seabed system design. Then in the United Nations Seabed Committee, the developing countries insisted on the establishment of international agencies to manage International Seabed and opposed market-driven resource allocation system raised by developed countries. Through several UN declarations of principles, the basic framework of the international Seabed system is established.During the Third United Nations Marine Conference (from1973to1982), the North and the South debated on specific arrangements of the submarine system design. Two negotiation groups, represented by the developing countries and the developed countries, originally intended to reach consensus on every institutional arrangement, but resulted in constant debate and an endless conference. After the allocation principle that concerning international organizations should represent the mankind to share the seabed resources was established, the developing and developed countries began to conflict on the principles and conditions of seabed development and especially refused to compromise on issues such as production policies, fiscal arrangements and technology transfer. Thanks to the advantage of the developing countries in numbers and the divide within the developed countries, the two groups made a compromise to reach consensus. The international seabed system for resource management and development was finally established based on the principle of "common heritage of mankind". In this system, the parallel development mechanism cooperated by international organizations and investors plays the core role, and the International Seabed management agency which is responsible for international seabed development serves as the carrier.Dissatisfied with the International Seabed system, some developed countries refused to join the Convention or sign the "reciprocal agreement", and openly opposed the international seabed system for resource development. Therefore, members of the Convention set up preparatory organizations to improve the international seabed system in hope of commercial development. However, great changes in world politics and economy as well as an increasing desire to improve the national seabed system in the international society prompted all countries, within and without the Convention, to reform and improve the international seabed system. In1994, the United Nations General Assembly passed the "Implementation of the December10,1982of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Part XI of the Agreement", which modified a series of major institutional arrangements such as decision-making process, review approach, technology transfer and production policy. This modification enables the International Seabed system to gradually meet the requirements of the market and the International Seabed Authority to be built as the organizational earrer of the International Seabed Area system. In the framework of the International Seabed Authority, the North and the South made efforts in accordance with the new institutional arrangements and amendments to achieve a reasonable balance between the utilization of resources and environmental protection, the interests of the developers and the whole interest of the international community with a view to a win-win situation.This paper takes the Yearbook of the United Nations and previous conference documents as the main materials. By exploring the positions and attitudes taken by all countries on seabed issues, the paper attempts to analyze the evolution of the positions, attitudes and interrelationship of the developing and the developed countries. The paper, taking the formation and development of the system as the main clue, studies the influence of the interaction between the north and south on the institutional changes and discusses the influence of the current international seabed area system on North-South relations and development agenda.