International Seabed Authority

The International Seabed Authority
by Winston Langley

When one today thinks of the oceans, one most often does so in terms of pollution, pirates, oil tankers, vacation tours, and national security. There are other reasons for thinking about the oceans, however.

They constitute over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and their conservation and protection have profound meaning for all land-based life communities. They, the oceans, are the source of human livelihood, in the form of protein, on which many people depend; they form a “water bridge” that facilitates world-wide transportation; they furnish undersea beddings for cables,thus ensuring taken-for-granted communication; they absorb immense amounts of waste from land; they interact with tectonic plates at whose consent human societies survive; and they are the repositories of mineral deposits which make land-based quantities seem rather limited. For example, in the case of copper, for instance, there is an estimated 7.9 billion tons in the seabed (the equivalent to reserves for 5,000 years as compared with an estimated 40 years reserve on land. Because of all the above features of the oceans, as well as their bearing on the security of countries (with security understood broadly, including health) countries have sought to shape rules to advance their respective interests, often with little or no regard for the interests of others. The global interest is rarely thought of at all. As technology allowed humansto have more and more access to the resources of the seabed, states began to claim, unilaterally, more and more of the oceans; and with these claims threatening international anarchy, the international community, through the United Nations, sponsored two Law of the Sea conferences, with a view to developing some common rules to govern the oceans. The first of these conferences (1956) resulted in four treaties, of limited utility, although important; the second (in 1960) was unproductive. In 1973, the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea was convened, with more than 160 states participating. The conference lasted for nearly a decade (until 1982) and resulted in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The convention comprehensively defines the responsibilities and rights of states, in relationship to the oceans; designates a variety of zones of jurisdictions; provides guidelines for businesses; offers general protection for the environment; and creates a governance structure (the International Seabed Authority, ISA) to manage the marine and other natural resources, as well as the conduct of states in relationship to those resources and to each other. In 1994, the convention entered into force (meaning, it became binding international law), and today over 150 countries have adopted the treaty, which is really a constitution for the oceans.

We bring this article to your attention, at this time, because of a number of things, not the least of which is to invite you to write your Congressperson to give support to the United States ratification of the convention (the United States has not ratified the treaty, but Senator John Kerry and others are leading an effort to ensure its ratification). Other reasons for the article are: the treaty or convention creates a global governance structure (with an Assembly, a Council, a Secretariat, an International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea; and the Enterprise, among others, which is to co-ordinate and supervise the mining of minerals beyond national jurisdiction; it recognizes that the seabed, outside the national jurisdiction, as part of the common heritage of all human beings—the area to be mined by the Enterprise; it protects the interest of countries that are land-locked (which do not abut oceans); and from our standpoint, it offers a model (although imperfect) for democratic governance on a global scale.

Three examples will illustrate the latter point. In the case of the Assembly, which is mentioned above, all countries are equally represented. In the case of the Council, it has a membership of 36, with representation from all regions of the world, and no country is allowed a veto. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is the judicial organ of the International Seabed Authority and it will deal with all legal matters pertaining to the seabed.

Perhaps the most significant issue, from our standpoint, is the fact that nation-states from throughout the world could meet, discuss for nearly a decade some of the most vexing international issues and resolve them peacefully: minerals, who should have access to them, especially in face of declining supplies of land-based supply, rights of littoral and land-locked countries, responsibilities to the marine environment, the claims of powerful industrial or maritime states and less developed countries, which often sought to challenge them, the interests of private, multinational corporations, which wanted little or no government control of the resources of the seabed and those who sought government intervention to ensure equitable access to and distribution of return from the seabed resources, the preference of some countries for veto-like control of decision-making and the insistence of others on a more democratic regime. As well, they dealt zones of overlapping control—international waters of countries, exclusive economic zones (EEZ), where countries have rights to mine and otherwise exploit resources, and the area beyond the EEZ, which belongs to all human beings, including succeeding generations.