UN General Assembly
1978

159. Colombia co-operated in the work of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, the seventh Session of which ended last September, from the only preparation of the Conference. We would recall the participation of our country in seeking to promote the Maltese proposals when the present President of the republic, Mr. Turbay Ayala, was the head of our mission to the United Nations. That process was later to culminate in the General Assembly's declaration of the sea-bed and the ocean floor as the common heritage of mankind [see resolution 2749 (XXV), para. 1]. Despite the interest of many Governments in speeding up the completion of the Conference, we now hear with alarm the announcement by some Powers of their possible unilateral exploitation of what is regarded as an area reserved for the benefit of all peoples. I wish not only to insist here on the need to protect the moratorium that we achieved on the exploitation of the sea-bed and ocean floor but to warn of the risks of excessive delay in the negotiations within the Conference, which may well thwart our attempts to create a new code of the sea, an instrument that would prevent a new colonization of the seas and oceans.