Deep-seabed Mining: Key take-aways from the International Seabed Authority's July 2025 Council & Assembly Meeting
- Samantha Robb
- Aug 5
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 18
Samantha Robb, Senior Associate at Ocean Vision Legal
Key words: Deep-seabed mining, ISA, Ocean Governance, Law of the Sea, Marine Protection
In July 2025 the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the inter-governmental body mandated to regulate deep seabed mining (DSM) in areas beyond national jurisdiction known as “the Area,” hosted the second part of its 30th session: the Council met from 7 to 18 July 2025 and the Assembly met from 21 to 25 July 2025. This post provides an overview of the key discussions and decisions taken by the ISA during this session, as observed by OVL’s Samantha Robb, who attended the ISA meeting in Jamaica.
The ISA’s reaction to TMC, the US, and potential unilateral DSM in the Area
Much has happened in the DSM world since the first part of the ISA’s 30th session in March 2025 (read OVL’s blogpost on the ISA’s March 2025 meeting here), where The Metals Company (TMC) announced that it intended seeking permission from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA for a permit for DSM in international waters:
The Trump administration issued an Executive Order on 24 April ordering the expedition of the US domestic process to authorise the exploration and exploitation of resources in the Area under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA);
TMC, under its US subsidiary, applied for exploration and exploitation licences under DSHRMA five days later, on 29 April 2025; and
Complying with the Executive Order, NOAA, on 7 July 2025, proposed revisions to Regulations for Exploration License and Commercial Recovery Permit Applications under DSHRMA - these revisions are open for public comment until 5 September 2025.
The ISA’s July Council meeting was pivotal in determining how the ISA would respond to the United States’ (US) unilateral move to allow DSM in the Area outside of the ISA’s regime.
The Council’s decision on this topic came out of discussions on the LTC Report (which concerns, among other things, contractor non-compliance and exploration contracts up for renewal). Notably, the ISA exploration contracts of both Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI) and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), TMC’s subsidiaries that are sponsored at the ISA by Nauru and Tonga, respectively, are up for renewal in 2026 and 2027 (TMC CEO, Gerard Barron, confirmed in a TMC investor call on 14 May 2025 that NORI and TOML will be applying for an extension of their ISA contracts).
The Decision (see paras 9 and 10) directs the ISA Secretary-General to obtain information from contractors at risk of non-compliance with their contractual obligations and to provide that information to the LTC (which is the legal and technical arm of the Council) for it to assess the information and report back to Council at its next meeting (in March 2026). The LTC, in carrying out this assessment, is required to specifically consider whether a contractor’s employees, subcontractors, agents and all persons engaged in working or acting for them in the conduct of their operations is complying with the laws and rules established under the ISA regime. The basis on which this Decision directs the ISA to investigate its contractors is through the standard terms of their exploration contracts (which can be found in the ISA’s Exploration Regulations). Contractors obligations under ISA exploration contractors include:
conducting exploration in accordance with UNCLOS, the 1994 Agreement, and their exploration contact;
complying with the applicable obligations created by UNCLOS and the ISA rules, regulations and procedures;
accepting the control of the ISA of DSM in the Area; and
that a contractor’s employees, subcontractors, agents, and all other persons engaged in working or acting for the contractor in the conduct of its operations are governed by UNCLOS, the 1994 Agreement, the ISA’s rules, regulations and procedures, and the terms of the exploration contract.
These contractual obligations mean that if an ISA contractor - as well as its employees, subcontractors, agents, or other persons who engage in the work on the contractor - are involved in TMC US’ DSM applications under the DSHRMA, the contractor may be in breach of its ISA exploration contract.
During the Assembly, many States, in their opening remarks, emphasised their support for multilateralism and the ISA as the only body with the authority to regulate and manage DSM in the Area. Notably, some States directly called out TMC and the US during the ISA’s Assembly:
In his opening address to the Assembly President Whipps called out TMC’s change in track from lobbying the ISA to the US, indicating that “For years, one company - The Metals Company - lobbied this Authority to fast-track exploitation, promising riches to small island developing states like mine and huge returns to investors. These promises have proven false. Now, having failed to gain legitimacy, TMC seeks to mine unilaterally, invoking a domestic law that has been widely discredited under international law. That is legal exceptionalism and an assault on multilateralism.” He further emphasised that “Mining the seabed would leave behind a shared ecological debt so vast, our children would pay the price for lifetimes. It is not a deposit into the future; it is an overdraft against the planet’s life-support system.”
Mr. Olivier Poivre D’arvor, the Ambassador for the Special Envoy of the President of the French Republic for the Ocean and the Poles, concluded his Assembly address by saying “...let's be direct. The United States has seriously challenged the mission of the International Seabed Authority by signing a decree on April 24 opening the possibility of extracting minerals from the deep ocean floor outside the international legal framework established by the Seabed Authority… Even though the United States is not a Party to our Authority, their current position cannot prejudice our organization and its unity… The Ocean is not there to affirm the leadership of a single country at the expense of all others and the multilateral process…”
The United States, which attended the ISA meeting in its position as an observer State, also delivered a statement to the Assembly, “responding to incorrect legal assertions concerning the legal character of [UNCLOS] seabed mining provisions, as well as factually incorrect assertions concerning state practice of the United States.” The US reiterated that it does not consider Part XI of UNCLOS (which governs DSM in the Area) to reflect customary international law, and that as a non-party to UNCLOS it maintains that it is not bound by the ISA regime’s rules, and provided examples to illustrate how it has acted consistently with that position. For further reading on the customary international law status of the ISA’s DSM regime in the context of the US’ recent actions, see the following EJIL:Talk! blogpost by Coalter Lathrop, and for further reading on ISA States obligations (regarding article 137 UNCLOS) in the context of the US’ recent actions see the EJIL:Talk! blogpost by Toby Fisher and Samantha Robb).
Continued Mining Code Negotiations
The draft exploitation regulations were not adopted at this Council session.
The majority of the Council session was spent continuing good faith negotiations on the draft exploitation regulations, with state delegates working tirelessly, often with additional morning and lunchtime meetings. Numerous complex and significant issues still require consideration and negotiation - making the draft exploitation regulations not close to finalisation. The Council reached the end of its line-by-line reading of the draft regulations of the 10 January 2025 Revised Consolidated text (which it started in its March 2025 meeting), but did not make it to the annexes (84 pages of the 256 page document) or standards and guidelines. The annexes and standards and guidelines are crucial to the DSM regime as they form the basis for effective environmental protection, including (but not limited to) thresholds, baselines, and what scoping reports, environmental impacts statements, and environmental management and monitoring plans will look like.
For its 31st session in 2026, the Council decided to adopt a thematic approach, without setting a strict deadline for when the exploitation regulations should be finalised and adopted. The Roadmap Decision adopted by the Council reaffirms that commercial exploitation of mineral resources in the Area should not be carried out in the absence of exploitation rules, regulations and procedures. The Council struggled to agree on the list of items that would inform the thematic approach and be required to finalise the exploitation regulations. It therefore requested the Secretariat to prepare a draft indicative list of outstanding issues that would fall under four main themes to be discussed: environmental matters; financial matters; regulatory, procedural and institutional matters; and governance matters. The Council further agreed to re-examine this draft indicative list at the beginning of its 31st session (Part I) in March 2026.
A further revised consolidated text of the draft exploitation regulations will be published by the Secretariat by the end of 2025, to give States ample time to prepare for the Council meeting in March 2026.
Finally, heated debates occurred when suggestions were made for closed-room negotiations which would exclude observers. Costa Rica, with support from other States such as Chile, Brazil, and France, emphasised the value that observers bring to international meetings for both inclusivity and transparency reasons and that ISA negotiations should be continued in an open and transparent manner.
Other Key Council Decisions
The Council passed two other important decisions this session. The first related to the operationalisation of the Economic Planning Commission (EPC). The EPC will be an organ of the Council and is intended to advise the Council on economic aspects of DSM. It is particularly essential for equitable benefit-sharing (a core element of the DSM regime under UNCLOS), advising the Council on the impacts of DSM on affected developing land-based producer States, as well as for the establishment and management of the Economic Assistance Fund for such developing States. The EPC Operationalisation Decision reads more as the first step to considering operationalising the EPC, than actually operationalising it. It “decides to initiate necessary steps with a view to operationalize the [EPC].” In this regard, it requests the Secretariat to prepare a proposal for EPC election mechanisms and the Finance Committee to report to the Council during the second part of the 31st session in 2026 on the financial implications of establishing the EPC.
The second decision was the approval of the standardised procedure for the development, establishment, and review of regional environmental management plans in the Area (REMP Template). A Regional Environmental Management Plan (REMP) is developed for every region where it is intended for DSM to be conducted and, importantly, is the mechanism through which area-based management tools are established to monitor and protect the marine environment from the harmful effects of DSM. In the current version of the draft exploitation regulations, a REMP is required to be in place before exploitation in a region can commence. The REMP Template is intended to establish a set procedure for the development, approval, and review of REMPS, accompanied by a general REMP template. The REMP Template has been in development since 2019 and so its approval by the Council was a significant step in effective REMP development, which is essential for environmental protection from the harmful effects of DSM, if DSM were to commence.
During the Assembly, the ISA celebrated its 30th anniversary, marked by a decision declaring 1 November the International Day of the Deep Seabed.
General Policy for the Protection and Preservation of the Marine Environment
A General Policy for the Protection of the Marine Environment (General Policy) was, once again, included on the agenda for the Assembly, via a proposal from Chile, after not being successfully included in the July 2024 Assembly meeting. A General Policy would serve as an overarching framework for the ISA on how it should implement its obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment. It would be applicable to all of the ISA’s work, setting priorities and providing strategic directions and guidance. At the adoption of the Assembly’s agenda, China expressed its concern with the inclusion of the General Policy as an item but allowed it to be included on the agenda. The General Policy was discussed as the last item on the last day of the Assembly. One of China’s main objections to the General Policy is that it is unnecessary at this time, as the ISA already has policies related to marine environmental protection, even if they are not explicitly labeled as a 'general policy.' China further argued that matters relating to marine environmental protection are better placed in the exploitation regulations. During discussions on the General Policy multiple differing views were expressed, and States could not reach consensus on whether and how to proceed with the General Policy. It was agreed that Chile would continue to pursue the discussion on the General Policy with interested States intersessionally.
Periodic Review of the ISA Regime (Article 154 review)
During its 29th session in 2024, the Assembly deferred its consideration of the question of a periodic review of the international regime of the Area, pursuant to article 154 UNCLOS, as an agenda item for this 30th Assembly session in 2025. The Article 154 review is a general and systematic review of the manner in which the international regime of the Area has operated in practice. Importantly, it is a mandatory review that the ISA is obliged to undertake every 5 years (since UNCLOS came into force in 1994). Despite its mandatory and periodic nature, the only Article 154 review that has been conducted by the ISA was initiated in 2016. There has been push back by a minority of States in adopting a decision to conduct this review; the most recent justifications being that it will deter from the work of progressing exploitation regulations. This year was no different - an overwhelming majority of States were in favour of the Article 154 review but two States (China and Japan) opposed it. There was therefore no decision for a review to be undertaken, despite such review being 3 years overdue, and the decision of the Article 154 review was again deferred to the Assembly’s 31st session in 2026.
Request for Observer status by DSM Contractor Organisation
A request for observer status was made by the Seafloor Mineral Developers Association. The Seafloor Mineral Developers Association is an NGO established by ISA contractors (currently NORI, TOML, and Blue Minerals Jamaica) to represent the interests of polymetallic nodule contractors in the DSM industry at the ISA. The same application for observer status was made at the 29th Assembly session in 2024 and was not granted observer status. This application sparked discussions among States on the rules of procedure for observers as well as whether contractors can apply to be observers. A compromise was reached that contractors can submit applications for observer status ahead of the 31st Assembly session and the Secretariat will provide draft guidelines for the Assembly to consider in its 31st session in 2026 (that will accompany the rules of procedure around observers). A decision was taken to defer the application for observer status to the 31st session, pending the outcome of these discussions.
Support for a Moratorium / Precautionary Pause on DSM
Croatia announced its support for a moratorium on DSM, at the Assembly, making it the 38th country to join those States supporting a moratorium, precautionary pause, or ban on DSM.
Palau, Panama, and others strongly reaffirmed their support for a precautionary pause on DSM. France’s Ambassador for the Special Envoy of the President of the French Republic for the Ocean and the Poles, Mr. Olivier Poivre D’arvor, in his Assembly address reaffirmed France’s position for a moratorium on DSM and that a moratorium or precautionary pause on DSM be put in place for at least 10 to 15 years, or until sufficient knowledge is available to make informed decisions, as has been advised by the the Global Consultation on the Deep Seabed and a report led by the International Panel on Ocean Sustainability.
Minister of the Environment, Juan Carlos Navarro, in his opening Assembly address shared that “…[o]ur shared commitment to this cause is a testament to our collective understanding of the importance of ocean conservation….we must pause and ask: What kind of ancestors do we wish to be to the humans of the future, and indeed to humanity itself? Some places on Earth are too old, too rare, too beautifully mysterious to be disturbed. They must remain untouched—not out of fear, but out of wisdom. Not because we lack technology, but because we still possess the humility to recognize that not everything that can be mined should be…”
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