The last 11 years have witnessed a revolution in the political organization of the oceans, a revolution that has found expression, at the global level, in the third United Nations Law of the Sea Conference, which held its first, procedural, session in New York in 1973 and began its seventh at Geneva this spring, having already consumed 41 weeks of diplomatic time in pursuit of its breath takingly ambitious target of a single comprehensive convention to govern the oceans. Today it, and the issues with which it is concerned, attract little public attention; but they have provoked a wealth of serious studies, conferences, and papers. Those examined here are among the more important of them, but they are far from exhausting the field.