UN General Assembly
1972

128. While the poor nations struggle to find some redress to the prevailing economic imbalances, the resources of the sea and the immense wealth that lies in the ocean bed and the subsoil thereof have presented some glimmer of hope. In June this year, Barbados, with other Caribbean countries, while stressing that the resources of the sea, sea-bed and subsoil of the maritime areas within their jurisdiction and adjacent to their coasts can help to improve the living standards of our peoples and accelerate progress in our countries, recognized the need to preserve and protect these resources. For not only are these resources being contaminated and polluted, but they are already being exploited and utilized to increase the wealth of those nations which by their manipulations pauperize the rest of the world. 129. The immediate need to regulate the use of and preserve and protect the marine resources makes it urgent that arrangements be concluded for the international conference on the law of the sea.