The interview was recorded in New York, NY,on May 16, 1998.The Interviewer was James Sutterlin. Ismat A. Steiner, director of the office of legal affairs for the Law of the Sea, said the United Nations does not give any kind of interpretation to the convention's provisions. "It's not for the (U.N.) secretariat to either apportion blame or say one state is right as opposed to another state," he said. "States are the ones that make that interpretation." John Temple Swing, an American lawyer who was a member of the U.S. delegation that helped draft the convention, dismissed the Chinese claim. He said the Bush administration was right when it said the collision occurred in international airspace. "If it was in territorial waters, then they would have a point," he said in an interview. "But it isn't and no lawyer — other than one paid by the Chinese government — would seriously dispute that."