UN General Assembly
1976

A global solution could only be arrived at if the Conference were to prepare concepts sufficiently broad to define general principles acceptable to all, but which on the other hand would facilitate and render possible the solution of specific cases. Those principles must take account of equity. On the other hand, as regards the resources of the ocean, which do not come under the jurisdictional sovereignty of any State, the methods for their exploitation should be determined within the framework of a system which would take account of the rights of each member of the international community to those resources and would afford an equitable distribution of the products of that exploitation.