日本財団図書館（電子図書館）　国際会議「地球未来への企画“海を護る”」会議録?海洋の平和維持と環境保護のための法的・政策的枠組みと行動計画?

III. Problems in the Relation of Resource Utilization and Environmental Protection

1. In a larger scale, the discussion above provides the context in which we can consider some problems in the relation of resource utilization and environmental protection. In this light, the challenges or dilemmas thus outlined appear as dimensions of the problems in that relation. At the same time, they confirm the validity of a fundamental premise in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that "the problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be considered as a whole".¹⁸ In reality, major interfaces establish the integral connection of the ocean with the continents and the atmosphere, as demonstrated by global warming. Resource utilization does not have to be off-shore to bear some significance to the marine environment. Indeed, the exploitation of natural resources on land becomes the source of pollution in vast coastal areas. The problem can extend to the use or utilization of processed resources in industrial centers which generates massive wastes that are dumped into the ocean. Land-based pollution, in fact, has been estimated to contribute 75 per cent of the pollutants in the ocean.

2. It would be more instructive to be resource-specific in identifying problems or designing approaches and safeguards in the relation between resource utilization and environmental protection.

Resource utilization or use should include transport, including warships or naval activity, which was central to the historical development of the law of the sea. The ocean as a resource for transport typifies the unity of resource utilization and environmental protection in that the oceans separate and divide countries and peoples, but at the same time as medium of transport connecting them, they form part of maritime security system.

The tremendous expansion in maritime cargo vis-a-vis the integration of the world's industries integrally connects the manufacturing processes of individual products assembled from global sourcing. The vital role of the ocean as transport medium is illustrated by the suspension of production of Honda, Japan's second biggest automaker, in its plants in Ohio and Canada on account of the closure of 29 U.S. West Cost ports by union lockout, thus affecting the "just-in-time" deliveries of auto parts for assembly. The carnage of strategic materials, such as oil, enhances the vital importance of maritime transport and thus increases the risks and hazards on the maritime environment. Petroleum discharge is a major vessel-source pollution. To illustrate, in 1 975 some one million tons of oil were dumped into the ocean by ships in standard operation, with about 200,000 tons more as a result of marine accidents. Risks on the marine environment are further increased by special category of vessels designed to carry dangerous cargoes such as liquid-gas tankers, chemical tankers, and diesel-electric ships. Of special concern are "nuclear-powered ships and those carrying nuclear and other inherently dangerous or noxious substances", regulated under Article 23 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The minimum terms of regulation in these cases may prove to be out of balance in relation to the great risks involved. Warships and other ships in military service are still impervious to regulation, even from the standpoint of environmental protection. Recent incidents of deep-sea accidents involving nuclear-powered submarines are signals to highly dangerous consequences, especially those which carry nuclear-weapons. Radioactive discharges are likely to be generated into the ocean. Exhaust gases from diesel-electric ships may contaminate sea-water with lead.

3. Maritime transport is a highly regulated industry, particularly in regard to pollution; but this has not significantly lowered the level of risks and hazards to the ocean regime. There is a need to overcome the segmented and regionalized regulatory systems by a more centralized coordination of political will of States.

In the light of the fundamental premise of the UNCLOS for the international community to establish a legal and policy framework which "will promote the peaceful uses of the seas and oceans",¹⁹ it may enhance the integrity of the relevant policy framework, as well as its confidence-building mechanisms, to seriously consider restrictions on innocent passage of ships carrying nuclear weapons and radioactive materials, and on military exercises in the exclusive economic zone.²⁰

4. The concentration of scientific and technological instruments in a few developed countries, to be used in the development of ocean resources beyond national jurisdiction will intensify extraction of resources from the ocean that may add to global disparities in the distribution of costs and benefits. Significant therefore is the consolidation of necessary transfer of technology systems.

5. A broader range of ocean resources that may present serious problems in the impact of their utilization on the health of marine environment, belongs to another occasion. As a central problem area, the relation of resource utilization to environmental protection may deserve attention through the setting up of an integrated global ocean monitoring system that can systematically apply, among other safeguard and remedial mechanisms, the precautionary principle as an indispensable component in the framework of sustainable development.

6. Starting as a research problem, preparatory measures may be taken towards serous threats and breaches of security having direct bearing on the condition of the world's environment, particularly maritime security, to be defined as integral part of "international peace and security", with the aim of including relevant human activities within the Chapter VII powers of the Security Council under the UN Charter. In this outlook, such human activities may be determined by the Security Council as involving "threat to peace, breach of the peace, or acts of aggression", and be the basis of enforcement action, including the use of military force, in order "to maintain or restore international peace and security.²¹

NOTES

¹⁸	UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, third preambular paragraph, A/conf.62/122, 7 October 1982.

¹⁹	UNCLOS, fourth preambular paragraph, supra note 18.

²⁰	See Josef Goldblat, Introduction, Review of Existing Constraints, Recommendations and Conclusion, in UN Institute for Disarmament Research, Maritime Security: The Building of Confidence, UN, New York, 1992, pp. 1, 6-7.

²¹	See UN Charter, Articles 39-42.