Underwater mining: Target to complete regulations by 2025
The International Maritime Organization (AIFM) announced on Friday that it will have until 2025 to adopt rules governing underwater mining.
An offshore oil platform (description).
AFP
On Friday evening, the International Maritime Organization (AIFM) adopted a roadmap aimed at adopting rules governing underwater mining by 2025, to the ire of NGOs calling for a ban on the practice, which they accuse of threatening the sea.
The decision, taken on Friday evening after hours of grueling negotiations, indicated the “intention to continue development” of the rules, “with a view to their adoption at the Authority’s 30th session” in 2025, at a two-week AIFM Council meeting in Jamaica. States.
The council, which has so far only awarded exploration contracts, has been working for ten years on the mining code, which restricts the exploitation of indigenous minerals on the deep seabed outside the national jurisdictions under its control. But there is still a lot of work to do to come up with a text, which has led to a legal vacuum since a critical deadline passed a few days ago.
Indeed, as of July 9, any state can file an application for an exploitation agreement on behalf of a company it sponsors, seeking to adopt a mining code within two years, following the expiration of a rule triggered by the small island nation of Nauru in the Pacific in 2021.
167 AIFM Member States
Ambassador to Nauru Marco Deieu underlined during the session that his government would “soon” seek an extraction agreement for Nori (Nauru Ocean Resources), a subsidiary of Canadian The Metals Company. While council members are divided on the interpretation of the legislation, ocean advocates worry about a potential green light for industrial exploitation. And they did not make peace on Friday.
Although the council has reiterated that commercial exploitation “should not take place” until the Mining Code is in place, it has yet to decide on a process for reviewing a contract application in the absence of a Mining Code. “This roadmap, negotiated behind closed doors, does not reflect the growing concerns and opposition to underwater mining,” denounced Sophia Senigli, particularly on behalf of the Deep Sea Conservation Alliance, a group of Greenpeace and WWF, which condemned the “pressure to speed up adoption” of the rules.
“A request for exploitation can be made at any time. A moratorium is urgent and necessary,” he asserted. The AIFM Assembly and its 167 member states will next week discuss the “precautionary break” for the first time, now defended by twenty countries, including France, Chile and Brazil.
AFP
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