The Trump administration is seriously considering unilateral mining of polymetallic nodules from international waters and stockpiling them as a mineral reserve for strategic technologies. This would subvert more than three decades of international legal efforts to regulate extractive industries through the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Ironically, environmentalists share some of the blame for this draconian step because for the past decade or so there have been massive campaigns against the Deep-Sea Mining that have targeted the ISA. Investigative journalists such as Eric Lipton went to great lengths to undermine the legitimacy and regulatory objectivity of the ISA and activists celebrated such reporting with a hope that countries would issue a “moratorium” on any such activity.
What has transpired now is that countries like the United States, which have not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, can use the impasse as an excuse to unilaterally move forward with such activity. This is a perilous development for marine biodiversity but also for international environmental governance. China has ratified UNCLOS and pledged to abide by international norms for extraction. However, the decision by the United States to go it alone will disincentivize any rules-based order on the high seas from the Chinese as well. Activists must share some of the blame for their self-defeating stigmatization of existing regulatory bodies, knowing well that the alternative could be free-for-all tragedy of the commons.
The environmental movement should also learn some of the lessons of its absolutist opposition to nuclear power which led to industrial research stagnation and a lost opportunity for climate mitigation because of extreme risk aversion. Resilience of natural maritime systems, even after nuclear exposure also needs to be considered. In the Bikini atoll where 23 nuclear tests were conducted (including the largest ever nuclear explosion), biodiversity studies conducted fifty years hence show remarkable recovery. Of course the social consequences of this testing were immense but that is precisely why it is important extricate social and ecological impacts in the high seas. Allowing for this frontier industry to cautiously proceed with careful monitoring and governance reform of the International Seabed Authority would be the sensible way forward for meeting the Sustainable Development Goal and targets related to the oceans (SDG 14, particularly Targets 14.7, A, B and C).
A systems science approach is needed to consider the way forward as the deep sea mining enterprise has to try and optimize four overarching and potentially competing objectives:
a) Comparative environmental and social impact of mining on terrestrial versus oceanic ecosystems;
b) Supply projections for key critical metals from terrestrial ore reserves (economically viable deposits) and resources (geologically available but currently not economically viable deposits); and from recycled sources and more resource efficient practices;
c) Demand projections for critical metals needed for the transition to cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar power as well as for batteries for electric vehicles and smart-grids;
d) Revenue generation potential for sponsoring Small Island Developing States (SIDS) who are partnering with industry for deposit exploration.
Activists and governments that have supported calls for a moratorium and perpetuated delays in the passing of regulations through the ISA should consider the reverse moral hazard of their precautionary paralysis. The delays in issuing regulations have led to the unilateralist sentiment taking hold. Companies like Impossible Metals are now gearing up for a new executive order that could give them the green light to move forward with their activities outside of the ISA’s mandate. Technically, US companies could still be governed regulations issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, (BOEM) but the authority therein could just as well be minimized by the administration. The advent of any unilateral mineral extraction in the high seas should sound an alarm bell for activists on their failure to see the fragility of international environmental governance. By favoring small tactical wins through naming and shaming international diplomats or championing selective science, they should have considered the strategic importance of empowering governance of the world’s oceans through the Law of the Sea.
