Mining companies are currently preparing to move ahead. The Metals Company, working through partnerships with Pacific Island nations like Nauru and Tonga, are expected to submit the world’s first application for deep sea mining to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) this month, June 2025, before a binding international regulatory framework is in place. The ISA, established under the 1994 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), is the principal body responsible for managing mineral-related activities in international waters and is tasked with establishing a regulatory framework that balances the exploration and exploitation of seabed minerals with the protection of the marine environment. The ISA has not yet finalized its Mining Code, the set of rules that would govern full-scale deep sea mining. Negotiations are ongoing and contentious, with growing concerns about transparency, environmental oversight and conflicts of interest.
Under UNCLOS, financial and other benefits derived from the deep ocean must be equitably shared among all states—especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS), least developed countries, and landlocked developing countries. To put this into practice, the ISA has “reserved” specific areas of the deep sea, which commercial mining companies can only access through sponsorship by a developing country. These arrangements are intended to support fair benefit-sharing, but serious questions remain about whether sponsoring states—often small and under-resourced—have the legal and technical capacity to provide effective oversight. While international frameworks assign them clear responsibilities, enforcement remains a challenge. As we have seen in other contexts, from environmental treaties to humanitarian law, international legal obligations are not always treated as binding, and there are few mechanisms for enforcement—raising important concerns about accountability, especially when the stakes are as high as the future of the deep ocean.
The ethical question we now face is this: should we move ahead with industrial activity in a place we barely know, for resources we may not urgently need, using technologies and practices that have very few regulations?