Background Release

SEABED AUTHORITY TO START DRAFTING RULES FOR EXPLORING

POLYMETALLIC SULPHIDES AND COBALT-RICH CRUSTS

(Received from the International Seabed Authority.)

KINGSTON, 29 June -- The International Seabed Authority will begin considering next week how exploration for two recently discovered sources of marine minerals –- polymetallic sulphides and cobalt-rich crusts -– should be regulated in the deep oceans beyond national jurisdiction.

The Authority, at its seventh annual session in Kingston from 3 to 13 July, will meet for the first time since contracts were signed earlier this year between the Authority and several seabed operators, enabling them to explore for another mineral source, polymetallic nodules, under regulations approved by the Authority last July.  These resources, also known as manganese nodules, were discovered in the nineteenth century but are not yet ready for economic exploitation.

The Authority’s 36-member Council will start devising regulations that will allow contractors to explore sites where the two new mineral sources are found, in parallel with the legal regime set up for nodules.  Meanwhile the Assembly, composed of all 135 members of the Authority, will review developments as presented in the annual report of its Secretary-General, Satya N. Nandan.

The Assembly is to complete the institutional framework of the Authority by approving its Staff Regulations, adopted by the Council last July and provisionally in effect pending Assembly approval.  For the first time it will not have to approve a budget, as the first two-year budget of $10,506,400, spanning 2001-02, was adopted last July. 

The Assembly is also to hold elections for its Finance Committee, while the Council will elect the members of its main subsidiary body, the Legal and Technical Commission.  The entire membership of both bodies is up for renewal.

The task of the Authority is to organize and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, an area underlying most of the world’s oceans.  This responsibility was assigned under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, as refined by the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI (seabed provisions) of the Convention.  The Convention defines this deep seabed area as “the common heritage of mankind”.  The Authority, in existence since 1994, is an autonomous international agency having a relationship agreement with the United Nations.

Polymetallic Sulphides and Cobalt-Rich Crusts

The initiative for the Authority’s consideration of polymetallic sulphides and cobalt-rich crusts came in 1998 from the Russian Federation.  Since then, last June, the Authority has held a workshop on these resources.  Based on its findings, the secretariat has prepared for the Council suggestions for regulations to govern exploration by private and public companies and consortia, national or international (document ISBA/7/C/2).

Polymetallic massive sulphides are types of deposits discovered in the oceans in 1979; they contain copper, iron, zinc, silver and gold.  They are deposited from sea-floor hot springs heated by molten rocks that well up beneath a submerged volcanic mountain range extending through all the ocean basins of the world (water depth 1 to 4 kilometres).  Currently, when only about 5 per cent of the seabed has been systematically explored, about 100 such sites have been found, mostly associated with volcanic island chains that border the western margin of the Pacific Ocean.  One such site outside the Authority’s jurisdiction, actively forming on the floor of the Bismarck Sea within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of Papua New Guinea, was leased in 1997 from that Government by an Australian mining company and is now being explored.

Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, like polymetallic nodules, are precipitated from sea water.  Unlike nodules, which lie loose on the sea floor as potato-shaped rocks ranging in size from golf ball to football, crusts form thin layers (up to 25 centimetres) on volcanic rocks.  They occur on seamounts and submerged volcanic mountain ranges between water depths of 400 and 4,000 metres, largely within and beyond the exclusive economic zones of western Pacific island nations.  The United Nations Secretary-General’s latest annual report on ocean affairs (document A/56/58, issued in March) cites an estimate that one seabed mine site could meet up to 25 per cent of the annual global need for cobalt, used to make corrosion-resistant, light and strong metal alloys and paints. 

In its paper on exploration regulations for these resources, the secretariat highlights differences between them and the polymetallic nodules for which the Authority adopted its first set of regulations last July.  These differences, it suggests, would have to be reflected in the new regulations. 

For example, individual deposits are small and probably incapable of sustaining an economically viable mining operation.  Moreover, varying deposit thicknesses make it difficult to assess commercial value without costly exploration.  Thus, a different system would have to be applied than for nodules, where a relatively large area is assigned to a contractor with the proviso that it would later be divided into halves of roughly equal commercial value, one of which would revert to the Authority.  Instead, the paper suggests that the contractor be given the option to offer the Authority a minimum equity participation in its operations.

Polymetallic Nodules

Several matters to be taken up relate to the system for polymetallic nodule exploration approved by the Authority last year.

The Secretary-General has reported to the Council (document ISBA/7/C/4) that he has signed exploration contracts with six of the seven “pioneer investors”

authorized to apply for them, with the seventh signature expected shortly.

Conclusion of the contracts became possible last July when the Authority approved the regulations governing their content, forming the first part of a Mining Code that will eventually cover exploitation and other resources.

Secretary-General Nandan signed contracts in March 2001 with enterprises sponsored by the Republic of Korea (signed by that country in April), the Russian Federation, and an organization established jointly by Bulgaria, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Russian Federation and Slovakia.  In May he signed with China, and in June with France and Japan.  Signature with India remains pending.

One of these contractors, the Interoceanmetal Joint Organization, has applied for observer status with the Assembly (document ISBA/7/A/INF/1).

The Legal and Technical Commission is to meet in closed session during the first week to resume work, begun in 1999, on recommendations to guide contractors in assessing possible environmental impacts arising from nodule exploration.  These recommendations will supplement obligations spelled out in the regulations and contracts.  They specify which activities, such as limited biological and mineral sampling, do not require environmental assessment, and those which do, such as dredging and equipment testing.  They also spell out the kinds of measurements a contractor should undertake before, during and after a seabed activity.  Besides impact assessment, the recommendations cite the kinds of information required for baseline data, needed for comparison with any subsequent changes resulting from seabed activities.

The Authority is conducting a workshop in Kingston on this general topic from 25 to 29 June.  Some 30 scientists and engineers are listening to papers and discussing ways of standardizing the collection of environmental data that contractors must submit to the Authority under the terms of the exploration regulations and their contracts.  The aim is to devise recommendations that will facilitate evaluation of the data and particularly comparisons between the materials provided by different contractors.

The Commission will also examine a report noting that the pioneer investors have trained 22 persons from 17 countries in accordance with their obligation to conduct training programmes for personnel from developing countries or the Authority.

Elections

      The Council will elect members to fill all seats on the Legal and Technical Commission.  This body now has 23 members compared to the original 15, though in its past decisions to add members the Council has specified that it was not prejudicing future decisions on size.

The Commission’s main functions are to review and advise the Council on applications for plans of work by seabed contractors, as well as to make recommendations on protection of the marine environment and to monitor compliance

with the Authority’s regulations.  Its members serve a five-year term as experts

in their personal capacity, nominated by, but not representing States.  Under the Law of the Sea Convention, Commission members can have no financial interest in any activity relating to deep-seabed exploration or exploitation.  (A list of nominees is in document ISBA/7/C/3.)

All seats on the Finance Committee are also up for election, in this case by the Assembly.  Members also serve for five years.  The membership must include representatives of the five largest budgetary contributors.  The Committee considers the Authority’s two-year budgets and other financial matters.  (Nominees are listed in document ISBA/7/A/3.)

The two principal organs will elect their presidents and vice-presidents for the year, with the Assembly President to come from the Asian Group and the Council President from the Eastern European Group.

Members of the Authority

      All parties to the Law of the Sea Convention are automatically members of the Authority.  The current membership is 135, up from 133 at last July’s session.  The newest parties to the Convention are Luxembourg and Maldives.  The list of members is as follows:

Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chile, China, Comoros, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, European Community, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Mozambique, Myanmar.

Also Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Note:  The documents of the forthcoming session are reproduced on the International Seabed Authority’s Web site:  www.isa.org.jm.