UN General Assembly
1976

53. It will suffice for me to recall here that the Central African Republic, my country, is more than 1,000 kilometres from the coast at the nearest frontier point. The importance my delegation attaches to arriving at a consensus at the Conference on the Law of the Sea which will not be at the expense of the continental States can therefore readily be understood. The distance separating continental States from the sea is already a cause of backwardness in their development and this will only cease to operate when the rights which I regard as natural, because they are inherent in the situation of being land-locked, will be unconditionally recognized.