eration movements, and failed to assure access for those pioneer investors who sought to develop deep-seabed resources privately.
In 1983, President Reagan issued the U.S. Ocean Policy Statement which declared, in essence, that the United States would follow the non-seabed-mining provisions of the Convention because they fairly balance the interests of the United States and all States with respect to traditional uses of the oceans. At the same time, President Reagan asserted a 200 NM EEZ on behalf of the United States, in addition to confirming the United States exercise of sovereign rights over the resources of the continental shelf.
President Reagan also announced that the United States would "exercise and assert its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms on a worldwide basis consistent with. ...the Convention [but not]...acquiesce in unilateral acts of other States designed to restrict the rights and freedoms of the international community in navigation and overflight and other related high seas uses. President Reagan's statement reaffirmed the ongoing U.S. practice since 1979 of challenging, through diplomatic and navigational assertions, maritime claims which are inconsistent with the Convention. More than 300 operational challenges and more than 100 diplomatic protests have been made since 1979 under the Freedom of Navigation (FON) Program challenging excessive coastal State claims. Finally, President Reagan issued a Proclamation on December 27, 1988 extending the territorial sea of the United States and its possessions from 3 to 12 NM, the limit authorized by the Convention.
Virtually all major maritime and industrialized nations declined to become parties to the Convention in its original form. Nevertheless, the Convention entered into force on November 16, 1994, one year after the sixtieth State deposited its instrument of ratification or accession. As detailed below and in Tab B, however, there has been a rapid increase in the number of States joining the Convention since the U.N. General Assembly adopted the 1994 Agreement modifying the Convention's objectionable seabed mining provisions. As of December 1995, the Convention has 83 parties (82 independent States and the Cook Islands).
SCOPE OF THE CONVENTION
The text of the Convention is the result of fifteen years of informal and formal negotiations in which the United States was an active and influential participant. Opened for signature on December 10, 1982, the Convention consists of 320 articles and nine annexes, treating virtually every topic of importance to coastal and maritime States. Among the subjects covered: breadth of the territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and continental shelf; rights of transit, innocent and archipelagic sea lanes passage; right of States to conduct marine scientific research; a balancing of rights be-
