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The Legal Fight Over Deep-Sea Resources Enters a New and Uncertain Phase

August 22, 2023

The past month was a flashpoint in the future of deep-sea exploitation – a future inexorably linked to the transition to a decarbonized economy. Deep-sea exploitation is governed by the International Seabed Authority (the ISA), an intergovernmental organization established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ISA’s authority covers a large swath of the ocean floor known as “the Area,” which UNCLOS Article IX delineates as “the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.” The ISA previously adopted regulations for prospecting and exploration of the Area, but despite years of trying, has never finalized a Code for seabed exploitation. Consensus has remained elusive – and now time seems to have run out.

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Development, Marine Biodiversity, and the Common Heritage of Mankind: The ISA’s Deep Seabed Mining Quandary and Complying with the High Seas BBNJ Convention

July 10, 2023

Starting July 9, 2023, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), sited in Jamaica, will allow companies to file permit applications for commercial deep seabed mining. In 2021, the Government of Nauru invoked Section 1(15) of the 1994 Implementation Agreement to Part XI of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which effectively started…

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Halfway Through 2023: A Year of Unparalleled, Avoidable Migrant Tragedies at Sea

June 21, 2023

In April 2023, I wrote about the Crotone migrant shipwreck which occurred on February 26, 2023, and ‘shocked’ the European Union (EU). Approximately 94 lives were lost, several others are still missing, and 86 survived. The incident was yet another paradigm of the delayed/non-assistance saga that has been unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea region at the…

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Dispute Settlement Under the BBNJ Agreement: Accepting Part XV of the UNCLOS with a Twist

May 15, 2023

Introduction On 4 March 2023, the Implementing Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) under the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was adopted after nearly two decades of negotiations. As the third ‘child’ of UNCLOS, the Agreement acquires from its parents…

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Recommendations on the Russian Federation’s Proposed Outer Continental Shelf in the Arctic Area

March 3, 2023

On 6 February 2023 the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) made its recommendations to the Russian Federation under Article 76(8) and Article 3 of Annex II to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in regard to the Arctic area. The Russian submission was initially made in…

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