India's joint working paper submitted at the Caracas session of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS-III) sought to coven among other things, the claims of coastal and mid-ocean archipelagos as well as the claims of the archipelagian states. In fact, India's interest in international recognition of the Andaman- Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands as archipelagos was stated explicitly at Caracas. UNCLOS-III, however, stopped short of bestowing legal blessings on the claims of the archipelagian states.