After years of attempting to pressure the international community into allowing deep-sea mining, The Metals Company (TMC) has taken the reckless and desperate step of announcing their intent to mine the international seabed through the United States’ Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act by applying for an application in the second quarter of 2025. This blatant attempt to circumvent the global multilateral process at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) comes at a time when governments, scientists, Indigenous peoples, and civil society continue to resist industry pressure to rush into deep-sea mining. This activity risks impacting our planet’s largest carbon sink, the ocean, during a climate emergency and causing irreversible harm to marine ecosystems that are crucial to sustaining life on Earth.
The industry’s actions expose how the push for deep-sea mining is driven by profit alone, ignoring the interests of developing countries and humankind as a whole, as stipulated through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Sofia Tsenikli, DSCC Global Campaign Director, said: The solution is clear – a precautionary moratorium on deep-sea mining. A moratorium would reinforce that decisions on the future of the international seabed – the common heritage of humankind – rest in the hands of all member States of the ISA, together, for the benefit of all. A moratorium on deep-sea mining would be a major win for nature, people, and multilateralism at a time when we need it most.”
Emma Wilson, DSCC Policy Officer, said, “The Metals Company is crossing a dangerous line by flirting with a breach of international law and a disruption of multilateralism. A deep-sea mining moratorium would ensure the fragile and critically important deep sea does not become a battleground for resource extraction and instead an area of scientific cooperation, discovery, and knowledge-sharing that benefits all of humanity, not just a select few looking to make a quick profit at the expense of nature and the global community.”
Duncan Currie, DSCC Legal Adviser, said, “This appears to be a desperate attempt to pressure the International Seabed Authority, by encouraging what would be a clear breach of international law. TMC appears to want to pivot from seabed mining without regulations to seabed mining entirely outside of all international frameworks. A moratorium is needed to prevent this kind of international conflict, discord, and chaos.”
Matthew Gianni, DSCC Co-founder and Political Advisor, said, “The global reputational risk to TMC and its associates operating outside of and undermining international law is likely to be huge. One cannot help but wonder why anyone would want to associate themselves with this company.”
Contact:
For media inquiries, please contact: patricia@communicationsinc.co.uk / press@deep-sea-conservation.org
Note to Editors:
For the past two weeks, governments, civil society, scientists, and Indigenous groups have been in Kingston, Jamaica, for the ISA Council meeting.