United States-Cook Islands Maritime Boundary Treaty Message to the Senate Transmitting the Treaty.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate, the Treaty between the United States of America and the Cook Islands on Friendship and Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between the United States of America and the Cook Islands. Also transmitted for the information of the Senate is the report of the Department of State with respect to the Convention.

This treaty is necessary to delimit the continental shelf and overlapping claims of jurisdiction resulting from the establishment of a 200 nautical mile fishery conservation zone off the coasts of American Samoa in accordance with the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, and the establishment of a 200 nautical mile zone by the Cook Islands.

In this connection, the status of four islands has also been resolved.

The treaty satisfies the interest of the people of the Cook Islands that their claim to sovereignty over these four islands, inhabited by citizens of the Cook Islands and represented in the legislative and administrative branches of the Cook Islands Government, will not be encumbered by a conflicting and largely unsupported claim by the United States. The treaty meets the United States interest in securing a maritime boundary in accordance with equitable principles. It furthers United States foreign policy interests in the area by establishing a basis for friendly relations with the Cook Islands and by furthering our interest in a peaceful, secure, and stable South Pacific.

I am transmitting for the information of the Senate a diplomatic note from the Government of New Zealand confirming that the Cook Islands has the competence to enter into this treaty and that New Zealand has no objection to its doing so and a separate exchange of letters between the United States and the Cook Islands, signed on June 11, 1980, setting forth the understanding of each side that United States flag fishing vessels and foreign vessels supplying the canneries in American Samoa will not be barred on a discriminatory basis from seeking licenses to fish in the Cook Islands' 200 mile zone.

I recommend that the Senate give early consideration to the treaty and give its advice and consent to ratification.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

September 2, 1980.