A Canadian deep-sea mining firm has revealed it has been negotiating with the Trump administration to bypass a UN treaty and potentially gain authorisation from the US to mine in international waters.
The revelation has stunned environmentalists, who condemned the move as “reckless” and a “slap in the face for multilateralism”.
It comes at a time when calls for a pause in deep-sea mining are intensifying. More than 30 governments are calling for a moratorium, arguing that there is not enough data for exploitation of the seabed to go ahead, and scientists have warned industrial mining could cause irreversible loss of biodiversity.
In a statement on its website on Thursday, Gerard Barron, chief executive of The Metals Company (TMC), said: “We believe we have sufficient knowledge to get started and prove we can manage environmental risks.
“What we need is a regulator with a robust regulatory regime, and who is willing to give our application a fair hearing. That’s why we’ve formally initiated the process of applying for licences and permits under the existing US seabed mining code.”
Leticia Carvalho, the secretary general of the International Seabed Authority, a UN body set up to govern deep sea mining, has expressed “deep concern” over TMC’s announcement.
At a meeting of delegates on Friday, Carvalho said: “All exploration and exploitation activities in the Area must be carried out under the Authority’s control.
“Any unilateral action would constitute a violation of international law and directly undermine the fundamental principles of multilateralism, the peaceful use of the oceans and the collective governance framework” set up under the treaty.
Countries have been meeting in Jamaica this week at the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA) to decide rules governing the extraction of metals such as copper and cobalt from the seabed.
They also discussed actions to take if a mining application was submitted before regulations were set. The ISA council has said no application should be considered before its rules are finalised, which is a long way off.
The Metals Company said it had initiated a process under the US Department of Commerce to apply for exploration and permits to extract minerals from the ocean floor. It plans to apply under the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act instead of the ISA, and is moving forward “with urgency”.
TMC has already carried out extensive exploratory work in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area of the Pacific Ocean seabed between Mexico and Hawaii that is rich in polymetallic nodules but also a wealth of newly discovered species.
The ISA, established in 1994 under a treaty ratified by 169 member states plus the EU, has jurisdiction over mining in international waters and decides how extraction should proceed. However, the US has never ratified the treaty.
Louisa Casson, a campaigner for Greenpeace International, said: “This announcement is a slap in the face to international cooperation,” adding that it was “an insult to multilateralism”.
Duncan Currie, legal adviser for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, said: “TMC appears to want to pivot from seabed mining without regulations to seabed mining entirely outside of all international frameworks. A moratorium is needed to prevent this kind of international conflict, discord and chaos.”
Georgina María Guillén Grillo, a representative from Costa Rica at the ISA talks, told the New York Times: “This seems a totally improper move by the Metals Company.”
