The plan by Donald Trump to lease millions of hectares of seabed in the Pacific for deep-sea mining contravenes international law, according to a letter published in the Guardian.
Guy Standing, author of The Blue Commons: Rescuing the Economy of the Sea, wrote that the proposal, reported in an article on 24 August, could unleash an ecological disaster. He noted that the plan breaches the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), which has been ratified by 171 countries and the European Union.
US Obligations Under Unclos
The United States has not ratified Unclos but has agreed to abide by its rules and procedures since 1982. Under the convention, no deep-sea mining may be undertaken until an international code on environmental assessments has been agreed, and an international agreement has been reached on sharing the economic benefits among all countries.
Lack of International Agreement
These requirements have not been agreed by the International Seabed Authority, the body responsible for drawing them up. Standing called on the UK government, among the 171 other signatories, to protest vehemently at the plan, which he described as reckless and lawless.
The original article reported that US territories in the Pacific, including Guam, oppose the proposal to lease seabed near the Mariana Trench for deep-sea exploration.
