The Hydrogen Bomb Tests and the International Law of the Sea

Abstract

From high quarters has come the suggestion that the hydrogen bomb tests conducted by the United States off the Pacific islands, held by it under strategic Trusteeship Agreement with the United Nations, contravene the customary public international law of the sea. Thus Earl Jowitt remarked in the House of Lords: I am entirely satisfied that the United States, in conducting these experiments, have taken every possible step open to them to avoid any possible danger. But the fact that the area which may be affected is so enormous at once brings this problem: that ships on their lawful occasions may be going through these waters, and you have no right under international law, I presume, to warn people off.