The deep sea, a location that most of us will never see and seldom consider, has an odd quiet that makes it simple to forget what is at risk. Nevertheless, a struggle is taking place somewhere in the hallways of Kingston, Jamaica, where the International Seabed Authority convenes, over who has the authority to determine what occurs four kilometers below the ocean’s surface.
Now that eight UN human rights experts have voiced their opinions, their message is remarkably direct. They contend that the existing framework is insufficient. They maintain that international law must serve as the foundation for ocean governance rather than the commercial interests of a small number of states and mining companies that are advancing more quickly than science can keep up.
The timing of the experts’ statement’s release prior to the ISA’s 31st session is deliberate. There is growing pressure to finalize a deep-sea mining code that is currently being negotiated. Businesses are agitated. The metals that drive the green transition that everyone is talking about—nickel, cobalt, and manganese—are attracting the attention of governments. “The deep seabed is not an industrial frontier,” the experts warned, “it is one of the most fragile and least understood ecosystems on Earth.”
It seems that the rush has started to outpace the rulebook. It does a lot of work in just one sentence. It presents the seabed as something more akin to a living archive, which we hardly comprehend, rather than as a treasure trove just waiting to be unlocked. The majority of the one million species found in the ocean are thought to be found in the deep sea. It is the biggest carbon sink on Earth. When you disturb it, you never know what will happen.
This is where the precautionary principle—a term that sounds bureaucratic until you consider its implications—comes into play. You don’t act first and research later when there is scientific uncertainty about irreversible harm. This is now more evident than ever thanks to recent advisory rulings from the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea: states have legally binding duties to safeguard the marine environment and the climate system on behalf of the global community. The same screws are tightened by the recently enacted new BBNJ Agreement.
The fact that companies pursuing essential minerals appear to be engaged in a completely different dialogue is what worries the experts. Deep-sea mining requires a lot of energy. It runs the risk of releasing stored carbon that has been trapped for millennia, dispersing harmful pollutants, and destroying seafloor habitats. In the process of combating the climate crisis, the very minerals being extracted may exacerbate it. It’s difficult to overlook the irony there.
The people come next. Indigenous peoples, small-scale fishermen, and Small Island’s coastal communities People in developing states have built their lives around the rhythms of a healthy ocean for generations. What occurs on the seafloor affects their rights to food, health, culture, and a safe environment. “Threats to the deep sea are threats to human rights,” the experts stated. The more you consider it, the more forcefully it lands.
Prior to the UN Ocean Conference in Nice last June, Astrid Puentes Riaño, the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, made a similar statement, cautioning that human rights cannot be an afterthought in ocean policy. As this debate develops, it is difficult to ignore how frequently other extractive industries have disregarded this exact warning, stripping forests, rivers, and mountains before considering who would foot the bill.
It’s still unclear if the ISA will pay attention this time. The experts remind us that the deep seabed is humanity’s shared legacy. They contend that governance must continuously defend it. The current concern is whether the global demand for minerals will permit it.
