Accelerating demand for critical minerals has increased the pressure to open the deep seabed to commercial extraction, revealing a fragmented legal landscape. Extractive activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction (the "Area") are governed by International Seabed Authority (ISA) which was established under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. While the ISA is yet to finalise exploitation regulations, coastal states have sovereign rights to regulate seabed mining within their own national jurisdictions, and some states have already developed bespoke regulatory regimes. This results in a mismatch: while the ocean is environmentally and ecologically continuous, its governance is not.
In this presentation, we will identify the levels at which seabed mining governance is fragmented. We then explain how this fragmentation creates gaps, inconsistencies, and accountability deficits at the boundary between international and domestic waters, increasing the risk of regulatory arbitrage, displaced liability, and weaker environmental standards. Each piece of the puzzle represents a different jurisdiction or regulation. Our goal is to assemble these pieces to identify the missing parts, to help ensure that states and private actors are held to the overarching obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment through sustainable use.

About the speakers

Daiana Seabra Venancio is a Research Officer with the School of Regulation and Global Governance working on the regulatory developments of seabed mining in the Pacific Region with Professor Nick Bainton. During her PhD at UNSW Canberra, she wrote the PhD thesis, ‘Regulating the Environmental Impact of Autonomous and Remotely Operating Underwater Vehicles in the Area.’ She has extensive research experience in Law of the Sea subjects, including seabed mining and maritime security.

Nicholas Bainton is a Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance. Nick’s current research is focused on one of the greatest governance challenges of our time: the impacts of supplying the raw materials needed for global energy transitions under already existing conditions of climate change.

This seminar presentation is a dual-delivery event. 

Light lunch will be provided. 

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email regnet.communications@anu.edu.au.

Image credit: Mister Pommeroy, Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.