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Even as the race to mine the seabed for precious minerals heats up, the international body tasked with regulating the emerging industry ended a key world meeting this week without a new mining code.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA), based in Kingston, Jamaica, is the only global organization responsible for regulating the release of resources from the world’s waters. It has faced increasing pressure in recent months after the United States, under President Donald Trump, took the first step to authorize mining outside the ISA process.
The US is not a party to the 172-member ISA, which operates under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Trump has ordered his administration to expedite mining permits — a move critics say could undermine the ISA’s mandate.
“Deep sea mining activities that fall outside the jurisdiction of the ISA can open the doors to actions that are considered violations of international law,” said Leticia Carvalho, secretary general of the ISA, in a press conference on Thursday.
“The sovereignty of the ocean today is facing the risk of fragmentation.”
A group of leading marine and climate scientists, including Canadians, are calling for a ban on sea mines as US President Donald Trump tries to speed up the approval of undersea mines.
Why the new pressure?
In 2025, one of the biggest players in subsea mining, The Metals Company (TMC), turned its attention to the Trump administration, seeking US permits to mine in international waters while challenging the authority of the ISA.
TMC, a global company headquartered in Vancouver, said it is pursuing US approval as part of its strategy to advance mining projects. In March, a US agency reviewing its application said the company was largely compliant with US regulations.
Before this week’s meeting, Carvalho told the New York Times that he hopes the mining code can be finalized this year, in part to oppose the measures of the TMC and the US government.
On Thursday, he said establishing those rules was still the best way to discourage mining companies from going through the ISA process, but did not give a new timeline for when the mining code could be finalized.
The ISA has also launched an investigation into TMC contractors to determine whether their actions undermine international negotiations on deep-sea drilling.
Governments must investigate whether companies are breaking contracts and “create consequences for rogue actors” who try to circumvent international law, said Louisa Casson, a Greenpeace campaigner following the deep-sea mining talks.
“I think it’s very important that governments decide to investigate again.”
Why do negotiations take so long?
This situation represents the largest assessment of the ISA since its inception in 1994. Although the agency has approved several exploration permits, it has yet to approve commercial mining.
Discussions about a mining code that would allow commercial mining have been going on for years, but have not been resolved.
TMC and other companies have urged the ISA to speed up the process, but lawyers say there is still a lot of work to be done for the mining code to be finalized this year.
“The real view, at least from most of the negotiators I spoke to, is that this year is unworkable,” said Emma Wilson, policy lead at the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a coalition of more than 100 international organizations focused on protecting the oceans.
Key sticking points include how to assess environmental impact and how to share benefits. Under international law, the seabed is considered the “common heritage of all mankind,” which means that the benefits must be shared with all countries – regardless of whether they are near the mines or not, and whether they are coastal or landlocked.
There are billions of tons of minerals essential for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage under the sea, and a Canadian-registered company is leading the mining race. But marine scientists and ecologists say it could threaten the undersea ecosystem about which little is known. Negotiations are underway at the International Seabed Authority this month in Jamaica.
Canada is one of 40 ISA member countries calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until more is known about its environmental impact.
Impossible Metals, a deep-sea mining company with an exploration division based in Ontario, said it still sees ISA as a viable option.
“ISA is making good progress but these complex, multilateral negotiations may take longer than this year to adopt a mining code,” said CEO Oliver Gunasekara.
TMC, on the other hand, sponsored research on little-known marine ecosystems. Some of those industry-sponsored studies themselves found that mining disrupts those ecosystems.
A 2025 paper from UK researchers, funded by TMC, said that 44 years after deep-sea mining exploration in the Pacific Ocean, the environment in the area had not fully recovered. TMC said the study also shows that environmental impacts may be limited to a relatively small area and show early signs of recovery.
Despite years of research, advocates say too much is unknown about the fragile deep-sea ecosystem.
“We’re talking about an unexplored ecosystem, so there’s a limit to how far they can go in the decisions they make if they don’t have that basic information,” Wilson said.
