B.C. mining firm seeking U.S. approval to dig in international waters

A Vancouver-based mining company is looking to sidestep the international agency charged with regulating mining in international waters after lengthy negotiations it says have gone nowhere. 

The Metals Company (TMC) will instead seek permission from the U.S. to start deep-sea mining in the Pacific Ocean, rather than from the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA).

Co-founder and CEO Gerard Barron says he believes U.S. could help start mining "much sooner than we would have been under the ISA pathway." 

"The United States' regulator is open. They encourage… dialogue and consultation," he said. "That's how companies get projects moving through the permitting process."

The move has alarmed observers and the ISA. The agency, since forming in 1994, and its nearly 170 member nations have been working to set regulations for mining in international waters but has yet to finalize any. It has issued exploration permits, but none for commercial mining.

The U.S. is not a part of the ISA. It has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which established the agency and many rules for navigation, resource extraction and environmental protection.

TMC is seeking a permit through a U.S. law that predates the ISA, 1980's Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act. It wants to extract small rocks from the seabed, called polymetallic nodules, in an area of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico. The nodules contain valuable minerals like cobalt and nickel.

But the U.S. has never approved commercial mining in international waters and the head of the ISA says it doesn't have the authority. 

"Any unilateral action would constitute a violation of international law and directly undermine the fundamental principles of multilateralism, the peaceful use of the oceans and the collective governance framework established under [the UNCLOS]," Leticia Carvalho, the ISA's secretary general, said in a statement last month.

Countries control seabed mining for just 200 nautical miles from their shores, under the terms of the UNCLOS. Beyond that is where the Jamaica-based ISA comes in. 

TMC, partnering with the Pacific island nation of Nauru, got an ISA exploration permit back in 2011. Since then, the company has been frustrated by the pace of talks.

Environmental concerns have weighed heavily on ISA's negotiations. Many countries — including Canada, France, Spain and New Zealand — have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining until more is known about its environmental impact. 

"The deep sea is considered the common heritage of humankind. So that means it belongs to all of us, not just countries, not individual corporations, it belongs to all of us," said Travis Aten, Halifax-based campaigner for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an international group that's been closely following deep-sea mining negotiations. 

"We don't want to rush this. We want to get it right. We barely know anything about the deep sea or the impacts of mining."