Introduction: Next Steps toward a Law of the Sea in the Common Interest

This symposium in the San Diego Law Review will appear at an historic point in the development of oceans law. In May 1977, the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) will reconvene for its sixth session. Despite a continuing impasse on deep-seabed mining which developed during the fourth and fifth sessions of the UNCLOS, the sixth session should begin in a climate more favorable to productive negotiations.