Seabed mining: a new geopolitical divide?

In addi­tion to the envir­on­ment­al insec­ur­ity caused by the cli­mate crisis and the energy insec­ur­ity caused by the war in Ukraine, there is a loom­ing min­er­al insec­ur­ity that could impede Europe’s energy and digit­al trans­itions. Cobalt, cop­per, lith­i­um, nick­el, rare earths, and oth­er crit­ic­al min­er­als are essen­tial for all low-car­bon tech­no­lo­gies such as sol­ar pan­els, wind tur­bines, bat­ter­ies for elec­tric vehicles or hydro­gen fuel cells. Hence, accord­ing to pro­jec­tions by the Inter­na­tion­al Energy Agency (IEA)¹, con­sump­tion of these metals is expec­ted to rise sharply by 2040. The metals are now vital to all eco­nom­ic sec­tors, and are cent­ral to gov­ern­ment con­cerns, driv­en by the glob­al push to decar­bon­ize, sys­tem­ic rival­ries between powers and a grow­ing aware­ness of the planet’s lim­its². In this con­text, mar­ine min­er­al depos­its are draw­ing the atten­tion of vari­ous states and com­pan­ies. Accord­ing to Art­icle 76 of the 1982 United Nations Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea, coastal states have sov­er­eign rights over resources with­in 200 miles of their shores. Bey­ond this lim­it, this is “the Area” where the sea and seabed belong to no-one des­pite the abund­ance of resources.

These depos­its come in three forms: sulph­ide clusters, cobalt crusts and poly­metal­lic nod­ules. Poly­metal­lic nod­ules are small pebbles lying on the seabed which are par­tic­u­larly sought after for their high nick­el, cobalt, cop­per and man­ganese con­tent. The Clari­on-Clip­per­ton Zone is an area of par­tic­u­lar interest due to its high con­cen­tra­tion of nod­ules; the zone is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and cov­ers approx­im­ately 4.5 mil­lion km² (the size of the European Uni­on (EU)) (Fig­ure 1). With the Inter­na­tion­al Seabed Author­ity (ISA) due to meet on 15 July³, it is timely to exam­ine the issue of seabed mining.

Under­wa­ter explor­a­tion cam­paigns are cur­rently under­way, but no com­mer­cial extrac­tion is on the agenda. Deep-sea min­ing faces a sev­er­al major obstacles:

• It is tech­nic­ally dif­fi­cult and costly (1 to 5 mil­lion dol­lars for the extrac­tion vehicles alone), not to men­tion the high and uncer­tain costs of oper­at­ing and restor­ing the abyss;
• It could have sig­ni­fic­ant eco­lo­gic­al impacts, includ­ing loss of biod­iversity, major dis­rup­tion of eco­sys­tems and pol­lu­tion, which are dif­fi­cult to meas­ure at present;
• Most of the min­ing poten­tial lies bey­ond the lim­its of nation­al jur­is­dic­tions, in what the United Nations Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea⁵ (UNCLOS) calls “the Area”, and states are strug­gling to agree on a uni­fied reg­u­lat­ory framework.

The Area is admin­istered by the Inter­na­tion­al Seabed Author­ity (ISA)⁶, a UN entity defined by UNCLOS and cre­ated by the 1994 Agree­ment. ISA has the exclus­ive man­date to organ­ize and con­trol activ­it­ies in the Area for the bene­fit of man­kind. It is there­fore up to ISA to set a frame­work for the explor­a­tion and exploit­a­tion of deep-sea min­er­al resources. Since 2014, the organ­isa­tion has been lead­ing nego­ti­ations to devel­op an inter­na­tion­al min­ing code. How­ever, the task has proven dif­fi­cult: while the Repub­lic of Nauru has been push­ing the UN body since 2021, and ISA Coun­cil and Gen­er­al Assembly are sched­uled to meet this sum­mer, they have already announced that final­ising such a reg­u­la­tion would not be pos­sible before 2025⁷. The draft­ing of this min­ing code thus marks a renew­al of inter-state rela­tions and brings forth  a new geo­pol­it­ic­al field, with its own issues, insti­tu­tions and fault lines.

The issues sur­round­ing the exploit­a­tion of deep-sea min­ing resources are at the cross­roads of sev­er­al tra­di­tion­al geo­pol­it­ic­al fields:

• High Seas Geo­pol­it­ics: The area is the focus of dis­cus­sions about free­dom of nav­ig­a­tion, defin­i­tion of exclus­ive eco­nom­ic zones, the shar­ing of fish­ery resources, and stra­tegic defence, sur­veil­lance and inter­ven­tion pos­i­tions. The high seas are a battle­ground for the stra­tegic interests⁸ of states, par­tic­u­larly coastal ones, as they try to delin­eate the peri­met­er of this “Area” of uncer­tainty. Under­wa­ter resources are seen as a new front for assert­ing sovereignty.

• Min­ing Geo­pol­it­ics: Most major min­ing coun­tries have a clear-cut opin­ion on deep-sea min­ing. Pro­ponents argue that it reduces the envir­on­ment­al impact of land-based extrac­tion and pre­vents future sup­ply dis­rup­tions. Com­pet­i­tion from these min­er­al resources is taken ser­i­ously by the tra­di­tion­al min­ing coun­tries. Some try to lim­it the scope by advoc­at­ing a morator­i­um, as Chile does, or attempt to become min­ing super­powers, like China. Sim­il­arly, poten­tial depos­its are already included in the sup­ply secur­ity policies of coun­tries, as Japan.

• Cli­mate Geo­pol­it­ics: Ocean has recently gained prom­in­ence as a dis­tinct sub­ject, dealt with in ded­ic­ated aren­as⁹ and at the core of ambi­tious texts such as the recently adop­ted High Seas Treaty¹⁰. Through this lens, under­wa­ter resources face the same ten­sion as cli­mate nego­ti­ations in gen­er­al: pre­serving a key eco­sys­tem while enabling all coun­tries to develop.

• Com­mons Geo­pol­it­ics: Des­ig­nated as a “com­mon her­it­age of man­kind”, the deep seabed faces the same issues of equit­able shar­ing as oth­er res nul­li­us. A par­al­lel can be drawn with Ant­arc­tica, which was pro­tec­ted from exploit­a­tion by the Ant­arc­tic Treaty Sys­tem in 1959. Sup­port­ers of a deep-sea min­ing ban advoc­ate for a sim­il­ar pos­i­tion, while oth­er states assert their right to appropriation.

Nego­ti­ations on a pos­sible deep-sea min­ing code thus involve these vari­ous ana­lyt­ic­al per­spect­ives and give rise to a new geo­pol­it­ic­al sphere with its own play­ers, nego­ti­at­ing dynam­ics and timetable. ISA¹¹ is the cent­ral play­er in this sphere, respons­ible for both reg­u­lat­ing the min­ing industry and pro­tect­ing the seabed. Strategies for influ­en­cing deep-sea min­ing are developed with­in its orbit. ISA com­prises 167 Mem­ber States –  and the European Uni­on (EU) – each with vary­ing degrees of influ­ence with­in the organ­isa­tion. Not all con­trib­ute to the organisation’s budget, 34 States have a per­man­ent mis­sion to ISA, 21 hold explor­a­tion con­tracts in the Area, 36 serve on the ISA Coun­cil and 41 have an expert on the Leg­al and Tech­nic­al Commission.

ISA is estab­lished as an omni­po­tent entity, tasked both with mis­sions to pro­tect mar­ine envir­on­ments, and to reg­u­late activ­it­ies with­in the Area and ensure equit­able shar­ing of fin­an­cial and eco­nom­ic bene­fits among states¹². These con­flict­ing mis­sions make the ISA’s pos­i­tion del­ic­ate and some­times at odds with oth­er UN struc­tures. For instance, UNEP¹³ warns about the uncer­tain­ties and poten­tial envir­on­ment­al, social and eco­nom­ic risks of deep-sea min­ing¹⁴ when ISA is tasked with draft­ing a min­ing code to reg­u­late its practice.

ISA is cri­ti­cised for its lack of impar­ti­al­ity between its mis­sions. For example, its fund­ing mod­el means that the organ­isa­tion can’t stop grant­ing licences without threat­en­ing its own con­tinu­ation. Receiv­ing $500,000 for each explor­a­tion licence issued, as well as an annu­al fee of $47,000 per con­tract­or, ISA relies heav­ily on income from the licences it grants¹⁵ for its own fund­ing. Its func­tion­ing makes it more likely to act as a reg­u­lat­or rather than a pro­tect­or. Its oper­a­tion­al mode also favours its reg­u­lat­ory mis­sion over its pro­tect­ive one. The organ­isa­tion is cri­ti­cised for its lack of trans­par­ency and its insuf­fi­cient con­sid­er­a­tion of sci­entif­ic advice. Par­tic­u­larly con­cern­ing are the “two-year rule”¹⁶ activ­ated by Nauru in 2021 and China’s veto¹⁷ on pla­cing a dis­cus­sion on the agenda for ban­ning the grant­ing of exploit­a­tion licences until reg­u­la­tions are adop­ted, rais­ing fears of poten­tially silen­cing oppos­i­tion to deep-sea min­ing with­in the ISA.

In ten years of nego­ti­ations on the min­ing code, the divid­ing line has shif­ted. Ori­gin­ally centre around meth­ods of reg­u­lat­ing deep-water min­ing, the debate now ques­tions the very desirab­il­ity of min­ing these resources. There are two dis­tinct sides: on the one hand, coun­tries such as China and Nauru which are in favour of speed­ing up the approv­al pro­cess (fast track), and on the oth­er, coun­tries such as Canada and Peru that are in favour of a 10 to 15-year morator­i­um, Brazil and Ire­land which sup­port a  “pre­cau­tion­ary pause”, and France which asks for a ban.

The move­ment advoc­at­ing a morator­i­um on deep-sea min­ing is rel­at­ively recent and grow­ing rap­idly. It began with the cre­ation of the Alli­ance of Coun­tries Call­ing for a Deep-Sea Min­ing Morator­i­um on the ini­ti­at­ive of Fiji, Palau and Sam­oa in 2022. It now includes 27 coun­tries and con­tinu­ous to gain momentum. Sev­er­al coun­tries are act­ively engaged on this issue and want to pos­i­tion them­selves as spear­heads in the pre­ser­va­tion of the deep seabed. For instance, France recently signed an agree­ment with Greece¹⁸ join­ing it to the move­ment. France aims to use its role as co-organ­iser (with Costa Rica) of the United Nations Ocean Con­fer­ence in Nice in June 2025 as the cul­min­a­tion of the “Year of the Sea”. How­ever, the media cov­er­age of the morator­i­um sup­port move­ment should not over­shad­ow the fact that most coun­tries have not defined a clear pos­i­tion on the issue and that dis­cus­sions on the sub­ject are evolving rapidly.

Deep­wa­ter min­ing rep­res­ents a new divide with­in tra­di­tion­al alli­ances, wheth­er eco­nom­ic (G7, BRICS+, EU), geo­graph­ic­al (CELAC, Afric­an Uni­on, AOSIS) or stra­tegic (OPEC, MSP etc.). This makes inter­na­tion­al rela­tions more com­plex, for­cing states to form new and more ad hoc coali­tions to defend their positions.

States mobil­ise four types of nar­rat­ives, which clash in the media sphere to jus­ti­fy or reject seabed min­ing¹⁹. The first two emphas­ize the poten­tial bene­fits of min­ing: a) access to metals needed for the eco­lo­gic­al trans­ition by redu­cing envir­on­ment­al pres­sures on land, and b) profits cre­ated in the Zone that would be dis­trib­uted among devel­op­ing coun­tries, becom­ing a tool for redis­tributive justice. On the oth­er hand, the next two nar­rat­ives emphas­ize c) our lack of under­stand­ing of the seabed and the eco­sys­tem ser­vices it provides to the plan­et, and d) the need for a strict pro­tec­tion policy, favour­ing met­al recyc­ling over a new extract­ive front. As these argu­ments clash, three divide lines can be observed with­in allied blocs that illus­trate these new ten­sions: among small island states, among West­ern coun­tries and with­in what is con­sidered the Glob­al South.

The first group, the Alli­ance of Small Island States (AOSIS), made up of 44 states threatened by cli­mate change, suc­ceeded in hav­ing 1.5°C adop­ted as a warm­ing tar­get under the slo­gan “1.5 to sur­vive”, thanks to their coali­tion at inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­ations. How­ever, they are now divided on the issue of deep-sea min­ing, between the eco­nom­ic poten­tial of the resources and the risks to mar­ine biod­iversity. Some, like Nauru and Tonga, want to exploit mar­ine resources to fin­ance their devel­op­ment. By threat­en­ing to trig­ger the two-year rule, Nauru is even seek­ing to press for the adop­tion of a mar­ine min­ing code by ISA. Oth­ers, such as Vanuatu, Palau and Fiji, sup­port a morator­i­um or even a total ban on min­ing. Vanuatu and oth­er islands in the “Melane­sian Spear­head” group²⁰ adop­ted a memor­andum²¹ in August 2023 reject­ing min­ing activ­it­ies in their waters and call­ing for pro­tec­tion of the seabed, sig­nalling the gap with their former partners.

In the West, there is a sharp divi­sion between those in favour of exploit­ing the seabed (United States, Nor­way, Japan, South Korea, etc.) and those advoc­at­ing a pause or even a total ban (Ger­many, Canada, Fin­land, France, etc.). The former stress the stra­tegic import­ance of access to metals for the energy trans­ition and nation­al secur­ity, while the lat­ter point to sci­entif­ic uncer­tainty about the envir­on­ment­al impact. The United States, which is neither a sig­nat­ory to the UNCLOS nor a mem­ber of ISA, can hardly influ­ence the devel­op­ment of mar­ine min­ing rules, which is why a bipar­tis­an res­ol­u­tion in Novem­ber 2023 sup­ports rat­i­fic­a­tion of the treaty²² in the name of secur­ing sup­plies of crit­ic­al metals, par­tic­u­larly from China. On the oth­er hand, Canada and France are defend­ing a morator­i­um and a total ban on seabed min­ing respect­ively. This situ­ation illus­trates the divi­sion of the West­ern allies: des­pite shared con­cerns about access to metals, they are hav­ing strong dis­agree­ments over the devel­op­ment of under­sea resources.

Finally, the “Glob­al South”, a het­ero­gen­eous group not aligned with West­ern coun­tries, is deeply divided over the exploit­a­tion of the seabed. China and Rus­sia are fer­vent sup­port­ers of exploit­a­tion: hav­ing already signed explor­a­tion con­tracts for all types of depos­its, they would enjoy a tech­no­lo­gic­al lead if approved by ISA. On the oth­er hand, Brazil opposed min­ing pro­jects in 2023²³, cit­ing a lack of suf­fi­cient know­ledge and call­ing for a 10-year pause in explor­a­tion. Chile, a sup­port­er of the morator­i­um along with Costa Rica, fears com­pet­i­tion for its cop­per reserves, which cur­rently account for 20% of the world’s land-based reserves. The Afric­an coun­tries, for their part, have no clear pos­i­tion: des­pite cri­ti­cism, they have jointly called for a sys­tem of fin­an­cial com­pens­a­tion²⁴ in the event of exploit­a­tion to off­set losses in their own min­ing sec­tors. No form­al oppos­i­tion, then, but a demand for com­pens­a­tion for their own min­ing indus­tries. So the motiv­a­tions on both sides of the divide are diverse: access to new resources, tech­no­lo­gic­al superi­or­ity, a source of intel­li­gence for sup­port­ers versus a risk to mar­ine biod­iversity, pri­or­ity to pro­tec­tion and fear of eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tion for detract­ors. The chal­lenge of open­ing a new extract­ive fron­ti­er is cre­at­ing major rifts with­in tra­di­tion­al alli­ances and upset­ting the old coalitions.

In con­clu­sion, the seabed is emer­ging as a new geo­pol­it­ic­al arena, with its own rationales and fault lines. As is typ­ic­al of mod­ern geo­pol­it­ics, the role of states is being scru­tin­ized. Busi­nesses have a key role to play in such a sphere. Indeed, they can push for the exploit­a­tion of the seabed which will bene­fit them dir­ectly, as The Metals Com­pany²⁵ has done. But they can also restrict the eco­nom­ic interest of these new resources by oppos­ing their use, as demon­strated by 49 inter­na­tion­al com­pan­ies that have signed a declar­a­tion in favour of a morator­i­um. Addi­tion­ally, the pro­act­ive role of NGOs under the umbrella of the Deep Sea Con­ser­va­tion Coali­tion and the mobil­iz­a­tion of the sci­entif­ic com­munity and civil soci­ety influ­ence cer­tain states, start­ing with France, to reverse their stance in favour of a morator­i­um on seabed min­ing. It remains to be seen wheth­er the forth­com­ing ISA nego­ti­ations this sum­mer will reflect this range of positions.