Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

80 Chapter 5
The more detailed report of the Senate Committee on Commerce covered
both pro-dumping and anti-dumping views. Nonetheless, it was
unmistakably precautionary and prohibitory in tone. It quoted extensively
from Cousteau’s statement at the International Conference on Ocean
Pollution (held after the House report was issued), and it frequently used
images, arguments, and passages from that statement. A portion of the
report said: “We have treated the oceans as enormous and indestructible—
145 million square miles of surface—the universal sewer of mankind.
Previously we thought that the legendary immensity of the ocean was such
that man could do nothing against such a gigantic force. But the real volume
of the ocean is very small when compared to the volume of the earth
and to the volume of toxic wastes that man can produce with his technological
capability. The water reserve on our spaceship is very small. And
again, as Captain Cousteau has said: ‘The cycle of life is intricately tied
with the cycle of water. Anything done against the water is a crime against
life. The water system has to remain alive if we are to remain alive on this
earth.’” (Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, Senate
Report 92-451, 92nd Congress, 1st session, 1971, p. 4237) Parts of this
passage, which emphasized norms and ethical concerns but which contained
little scientific evidence, were later quoted repeatedly in the Senate
debate on the dumping bill. 34
The Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State
pointed out during the hearings that apparently all waste dumped off U.S.
coasts originated in the U.S., and that this situation was not expected to
change in the future (Russell Train, “Statement,” in U.S. House of
Representatives, Ocean Dumping of Waste Materials, p. 170; John
Stevenson, “Statement,” in U. S. Senate, Ocean Waste Disposal, p. 193).
Foreign dumpers did therefore not represent a threat to U.S. waters. From
a rational economic point of view, there was no evidence that a global
regime was needed to compliment U.S. domestic action. 35 The situation was
different in Europe, however, where geographical proximity and shallow
seas created a disincentive for unilateral action.
Instead of reasoning as realism’s rational egoists exclusively concerned
with the protection of American national interests, important U.S. politicians
thus perceived ocean dumping as a fundamentally global environmental
problem concerning all humankind. The House committee’s report