What I’m watching for at this month’s ISA meeting: The Vibes

The International Seabed Authority is meeting this month in Jamaica, but it is not the entire International Seabed Authority. Only the Legal and Technical Commission and the Council meet this months.

The Legal and Technical Commission is a body of experts that reviews documents and proposals, usually in private as many contain privileged information from commercial entities. The Council is a rotating body of 36 member states. The Council is an executive body, it can approve policies, issue emergency orders, and has a few other powers related to the execution of established rules and regulations, but largely what it does is make recommendations to the Assembly.

The Assembly is the supreme decision-making body of the International Seabed Authority. Among a suite of powers, the Assembly is the sole body within the ISA that can approve a Deep-sea Mining Code. The Assembly, along with other bodies within the ISA, are supposed to strive for consensus. When consensus can’t be reached, questions of procedure can be settled by a simple majority. Questions of substance require a 2/3 majority.

The Assembly isn’t meeting right now. While there are important procedural and structural matters related to the current draft mining code being addressed this month, the big decisions can’t be made until August, at the earliest.

Which means a lot of what I’m watching for at this meeting is… the vibe. How close to consensus are member states during these negotiations? Are the major points of contention related to big, sweeping differences in policy or are we digging into very specific details? Which parts of the draft code are garnering the most and least support?

My impression is that the actual substance of the environmental regulations are getting reasonably close to, if not consensus, than that 2/3rds majority vote. Member states seem to have largely settled on what should be prioritized. The disagreements now seem to revolve around questions of monitoring, enforcement, compliance, and how all of the gets paid for, and by whom. Factoring in environmental externalities saw a lot of disagreement and some detailed discussion, but little resolution beyond an acknowledgement that we still know too little to estimate the external costs of mining activities. Cultural Heritage is going to have a half day of discussion next week.

Where things still seem bogged down is in the financial regime, with different member states working to maximize revenue to their constituencies. Some countries are going to mine, and they want to reap profits from the mining. Other countries expect a royalty payment in accordance with the Common Heritage principle. Still others have terrestrial industries they need to protect. The ISA also needs to cover its operating expenses. You can see why this is such a delicate balancing act.

By the end of next week, we’ll have a better idea of where the ISA stands on the draft mining code and how much work is left to do. It doesn’t feel like there will be a vote on the Mining Code this summer, with some stakeholders already looking ahead to 2025. And that creates a tricky situation.

Nauru invoked the trigger and the 2-year deadline is up. Contractors can submit a plan of work to begin mining to the Legal and Technical Commission, who will make a recommendation to the Council, and the Council will review it and either approve or reject. Approving or rejecting plans of work is a power reserved by the Council, but rejecting a plan of work approved by the Legal and Technical Commission is a weird process that would ultimately require consensus by the Council. This process takes a while, likely a year or more between submission of a draft plan of work and recommendation from the Council.

If a contractor submits a plan of work this summer, as one contractor has implied, it will likely set off a year of diplomatic and legal brinksmanship.

Tonight, the Secretariate is going to lead a discussion on the NORI-D incident and what it means for Greenpeace’s Observer status (and to a greater extent, what authority the Authority actually has over observers outside of the Jamaica Conference Center). The Assembly of the International Seabed Authority has the power to grant and review Observer status to NGOs and other entities. Withdrawing Greenpeace’s status is not something that could happen before the Assembly meets this summer, but by the end of tonight, we’ll have a good idea where the sentiment of the ISA falls. I expect that some cohort of member states will issue an informal censure of Greenpeace, but there will be no substantive actions taken against them. I also expect some cohort of member states and observers to voice their disapproval of the Secretariate overstepping its authority.

One other topic I’m watching is the Secretary-General election. Michael Lodge’s second term is up this year, and while it would be extremely unlikely to see the current Secretary-General unseated, on Monday Brazil nominated Leticia Carvalho, Head of Marine and Freshwater Branch and the UN Environmental Program as their candidate.

Previous updates on the meeting:

• What I’m watching for at this month’s ISA meeting: How the Council responds to the NORI-D Incident
• What I’m watching for at this month’s ISA meeting: How are pro-moratorium member states dealing with their own mining leases?
• What I’m watching for at this month’s ISA meeting: untangling the financial regime
• What I’m watching for at this month’s ISA meeting: How to Value Cultural Heritage on the High Seas?

Articles and reports I’ve been reading this week:

• Enforcement of Deep-Sea Mining Regulations: Unpacking the Tangle of Overlapping Jurisdictions in International Waters
• Updated phylogeny of Vestimentifera (Siboglinidae, Polychaeta, Annelida) based on mitochondrial genomes, with a new species
• Communities worry anew as PNG revives seabed mining plans
• Greenpeace could be thrown out of UN deep-sea mining body
• Summit on migratory species sides with science, throws shade on deep-sea mining
• Deep-sea mining could cost $500 billion in value destruction, study says
• From the Deep Sea to D.C.—How China Fears Have Put Ocean-Floor Mining on Washington’s Radar

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Featured Image: An extensive field of ferromanganese nodules, often interspersed with wide patches of ripple-ornamented sediment, formed the bulk of the hard seafloor substrate for much of Dive 17 of the 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones expedition. Image courtesy of NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones: New England and Corner Rise Seamounts.