UN General Assembly
1978

198. Allow me in this context to refer to the ongoing Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. The sea remains one of the last reservoirs of the earth's diminishing resources. To decide how those resources should be exploited in an orderly manner for the benefit of mankind as a whole remains the primary task of the current Conference on the Law of the Sea. The Conference itself represents a determined effort in international co-operation to design an international legal framework that will prevent international conflict in our endeavour to exploit the sea and its resources. It is against .this background that the Sierra Leone Government views any attempt at unilateral national legislation to exploit the resources of the deep-seabed not only as unhelpful and inappropriate but also as an act that will undermine the work of the Conference itself and jeopardize its achievements so far. Such an attempt should, in our view, be deprecated.