- Negotiations by member states of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a U.N.-associated regulator, broke down at a crucial meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, before delegates reached a partial compromise in the final hours.
- The point of contention was whether to discuss two proposals at the meeting: one to conduct a review of the ISA itself and the other to discuss the possible consequences to the marine environment from a rule on deep-sea mining.
- The previous week, member states of the ISA council, the organization’s policymaking body, agreed to aim for July 2025 to finalize rules, regulations and procedures to govern deep-sea mining.
- Deep-sea mining has not yet begun anywhere in the world, but the potential impacts of this activity have stirred controversy.
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Negotiations broke down at deep-sea mining meetings that recently took place in Jamaica, exposing deep rifts within the International Seabed Authority, the U.N.-associated body tasked with governing seabed mining while protecting the ocean. Delegates eventually reached a partial compromise on July 28, during the final hours of the meeting.
Last week, members of the ISA’s assembly, a body comprising 168 member states and the EU that acts as the “supreme organ” of the ISA, became locked in a stalemate over whether to adopt two proposed agenda items for the meeting, which ran July 24 through 28. The debate consumed hours of meeting time and stalled progress on other items on the official meeting agenda.
One of the proposals, put forward by Germany, called for the assembly to discuss conducting a “periodic review” of the ISA and its procedures, which the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates should be done every five years. The last review of this kind was completed six years ago, in 2017. The other proposal, submitted by Chile, France, Palau and Vanuatu, called for the assembly to consider the “potential consequences of the ‘two-year rule’ in the marine environment.”
Items on the meeting agenda included discussions of financial matters, the granting of observer status to NGOs, and the ISA’s proposal for a strategic plan, which is to provide a road map for how the ISA should work over the next five years. However, countries also failed to agree on the adoption of the strategic plan; most matters agreed upon were administrative in nature.
The so-called two-year rule refers to a provision of UNCLOS that, once triggered, urges the ISA to finalize its rules, regulations and procedures for deep-sea mining within a two-year time frame or grant mining licenses with whatever rules are in place by then. In 2021, Nauru, a tiny Pacific island with a population of about 12,500, set off this rule to jump-start mining. The two-year deadline expired on July 9, but the ISA still had not fully developed mining rules. In response, the ISA council — the organization’s 36-member-state policymaking body, which met in Kingston July 10 through 21 — agreed to aim for July 2025 to finalize these rules, although this decision was nonbinding.
Proponents of deep-sea mining argue that seabed minerals are necessary to support the development of renewable energy technologies like electric cars and solar panels that will help the world transition away from fossil fuels. Yet scientists and environmental experts say this activity would cause widespread and irreversible harm to marine ecosystems, and run counter to international efforts to protect the environment, including the recently inked high seas treaty aimed to conserve marine biodiversity in parts of the ocean beyond any country’s jurisdiction.
At the meeting of the ISA assembly last week, some countries, the most vocal of which was China, rejected the inclusion of the two proposed items on the meeting agenda. On July 24, the opening day of the assembly meeting, Zhao Wenting of the Chinese delegation argued that the two agenda items were “not suitable” for discussion in the assembly, according to an English translation of her remarks during the meeting. She also referred to the decisions made the previous week by the council, of which China is a member, and said that any discussion in the assembly would not be a “constructive means of finding a solution” as it would “possibly complicate the review or consideration by the council.”
During several closed-door discussions over the week, states failed to reach a consensus about whether to include the two proposed agenda items. On July 27, China eventually agreed to include the agenda item proposed by Germany regarding the ISA review, but not the one proposed by Chile, France, Palau and Vanuatu regarding the two-year rule.
On the afternoon of July 28, during the last hours of the assembly meeting, delegates finally agreed to conduct the periodic review of the ISA at the next meeting in July 2024. However, the proposed agenda item regarding the discussion of the protection of the marine environment was not adopted. Delegates can, however, resubmit the proposal 60 days before the next meeting.
Mongabay reached out to the Chinese delegation for comment, but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
On July 27, Ilana Seid, the permanent representative of Palau to the United Nations, expressed her frustration that countries could not reach a compromise.
“Many of us are not council members, yet we have spent time and resources drafting, socializing, and revising our proposals submitted in time and in accordance with the rules of procedure to be able to have these conversations in the assembly on record,” Seid said during the assembly meeting on behalf of Chile, Costa Rica, France, Vanuatu and Palau. “Many of us flew here from significant distances to have these discussions as full-paying members of the assembly, and we are dismayed that we have instead spent hours and hours on procedural rules and matters. We strongly believe the work of the council is better when it’s informed by the voices and opinions of all assembly members who choose to debate.
“We respect the role of the council and its members,” Seid added. “However, the assembly has its role to play. It is not a passive organ of the authority.”
In a press call that took place on the morning of July 28, before delegates reached the partial compromise, Michael Lodge, secretary-general of the ISA Secretariat, called the meeting of the assembly a “very successful session.”
“A great deal of good feeling and a great deal of consensus around the room,” Lodge said.
When Mongabay questioned Lodge about the apparent lack of consensus in the meetings, he said it was “absolutely normal in any multilateral organization” for member states to have “divergent positions.”
“That’s why we’re here because we provide a forum for member states to sit and try to resolve those divergent discussions by a process of discussion and negotiation,” Lodge said in response to Mongabay’s question. “Often that takes place in the margins in the small rooms in the big room, but it’s absolutely normal.”
Several observers from civil society, however, told Mongabay they disagreed that the meetings were a success.
Bobbi-Jo Dobush, legal officer of the Washington, D.C.-based NGO The Ocean Foundation, who attended the ISA meetings as an observer, said the failure of the ISA assembly to reach consensus on the agenda item “points towards larger problems with the ISA.”
“One country was able to block the rest from even having a conversation on something clearly in the ISA’s mandate: the conservation of the marine environment,” Dobush told Mongabay in an email. “This squandered hours of much needed discussion time.”
Patricia Esquete, a deep-sea scientist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, who also attended the meetings as an observer in the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI) delegation, said that while the matters of the meeting were political, she was troubled about the outcome of the negotiations.
“As a scientist, I find very concerning that countries cannot agree on having a conversation about the protection [of] the marine environment,” Esquete told Mongabay, speaking in a personal capacity. “In my opinion, the protection of the deep-sea ecosystems is crucial, so it is important having conversations at this level.”
Banner image: Scientists and environmental experts say seabed mining activity would cause widespread and irreversible harm to marine ecosystems. Image courtesy of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a senior staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter @ECAlberts.
Deep-sea mining rules delayed two more years; mining start remains unclear
