UN General Assembly
1978

99. It is not right that great industrial Powers should reserve for themselves extensive fishing zones, send their fleets thousands of kilometres away to reap resources lying off the coasts of developing States, and yet not recognize the rights of those States with regard to the exploitation of their marine resources, which are the only resources accessible to their generally poorly equipped national fleets. 100. As I stated during my first visit to our island territory most distant from the mainland, Cocos Island: "The President of the United States has opened up a new and promising era in international relations by proceeding to the exchange of documents concerning the Panama Canal Treaties. The principles he laid down are categorical and, if the new Canal Treaties are the first sign of this new policy, Costa Rica trusts that those same principles will apply in the case of fisheries, in the interests of justice in relations between our two countries."