Written in response to the increasing interest in the making of ocean policy, this collection of original articles surveys the history of U.S. ocean policy, ocean policy advocacy, and the struggle within government to determine how best to develop and implement a sensible ocean policy. The increasing complexity of the issues, programs, and policies related to marine and coastal zone matters and the increasing number of government agencies and interest groups formed to deal with these matters reflect the growing awareness of their importance. But, reflect the editors, in an enormously complex world, where many interests are in conflict and where information is tentative and incomplete—yet often overwhelmingly abundant—there are few easy solutions to ocean policy problems.

The 1982 U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea took over a decade to produce and was the final result of the largest single international negotiating process undertaken before or since that time. As the world's leading maritime nation, the U.S. has vital, immediate, national interests in the Convention and in the continuing refinement of maritime law based upon the tenets of that comprehensive document. The present work describes in detail the concurrent development of international law and the law of the sea, the complex negotiating process that resulted in the completed Convention, the role of the U.S. both during the Law of the Sea Convention and during the decade of negotiation that finally made the Convention acceptable, and policy directions and issues for the U.S. in the post-Convention environment. This is an important new text in international law, international relations, and maritime affairs.

The law of the sea, one of the oldest and most highly developed areas of international law, has changed significantly in the past fifty years in response to rapid scientific and technological advances coupled with an increased population and the need for additional resources. Ann Hollick documents these changes and examines the evolution of U.S. ocean policy in the larger contexts of American foreign policy and of international law and politics. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.