ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Japan’s objectives in the development and utilization of living resources, seawater, seabed resources, ocean energy, ocean space, and multi-purpose technologies, as well as in consolidating basic legal and institutional foundations. ODD — the sole and leading actor in the preparatory phase, gradually and naturally changed its role from leader to supporting the work of the council and its members. Efforts were made during the second phase to develop a general consensus on the central thrust of the recommendations to be incorporated into the final Toshin and the way in which those recommendations should be presented and supported by quantitative and qualitative information. This second phase can be defined as one of basic consensus-building as compared with the third and last phase in which the major task was to formalize the consensus that had emerged during the second phase.
