23 June 2021

[...]

Nations must sponsor companies that want to explore for minerals and among the countries that have issued licences are the tiny Pacific Island countries of Tonga, Cook Islands, Nauru and Kiribati.

[...]

Vanuatu’s government, along with the prime ministers of Fiji and Papua New Guinea, have called for a regional moratorium on deep-sea mining while more can be learnt about potential environmental harms and how to protect against them.

[...]

Before mining can commence, the ISA needs to release a code for the exploitation of the deep sea. This was due to be released and adopted in July 2020, but was delayed due to Covid. The ISA announced this week that it aimed to resume face-to-face meetings this year.

[...]

But DeepGreen’s boss, Gerard Barron, has suggested that if the ISA moves slowly on developing a regulatory framework, the company might invoke the so-called two-year rule, which allows a country sponsoring a mining contractor to notify the ISA that the company intends to begin mining. The ISA then has two years to finalise the regulations for deep sea mining. If it is unable to do so, the ISA is required to allow the contractor to begin work under whatever regulations are in place at the time.

“It’s something that’s consistently under review – it’s not off the table, that’s for sure,” Barron told China Dialogue Ocean about triggering the two-year rule.

In response to the Guardian’s questions on the subject, DeepGreen said the two-year rule is “only available to sponsoring states to use, not contractors like DG, which cannot invoke it” but that it was a “a valid option available to all member states of the International Seabed Authority.”