The mining of the deep sea is a contentious issue and has been the subject of a number of international law treaties. The first of these was the Law of the Sea Convention 1982 which was the first real attempt to create a system of regulation of the mining of deep seas on a global scale. The balancing of the considerations between states involved the desire to preserve the environment whilst many states also sought access to the rich deposits of minerals beneath the sea. The original convention on the High Seas being the High Seas Convention 1958 provides as follows in article 2:

“The High Seas being open to all nations, no State may validly purport to subject any part of them to its sovereignty.”

Article 2 sets out the following freedoms of the High Seas:

(a) Freedom of navigation.
(b) Freedom of fishing.
(c) Freedom to lay submarine cables and pipelines.
(d) Freedom to fly over the high seas.

These four freedoms notably do not include the right to mineral extraction. There were then later on General Assembly resolutions of the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. When the Law of the Sea Convention 1982 came into existence , under article 153 a legal framework for exploring and exploiting resources on and beneath the bed of the high seas was created. Nation states were responsible creating regulatory regimes to monitor and control deep sea bed mining and other forms of resource extraction. In this regard, the convention was fairly permissive of the rights of national governments to regulate in relation to deep sea bed mining within their own territories.

Naturally, the events of the deep horizon oil well spill in the United States of 2010 will lead many to question the wisdom of permissive regulation in relation to mineral resource extraction from deep sea resources and it is expected that the United States in particular will adopt a much tougher regulatory regime in relation to these activities as a result of this disaster. If you have a query about mining law and deep sea bed resource extraction, please do not hesitate to contact us using the contact methods available on this site. We have specialist mining lawyers available to assist you with any inquiries which you may have.