[NEIL CRAIK]

When we talk about deep seabed mining, what we’re really talking about is the exploitation of mineral resources — in this case, different kinds of minerals embedded in the seabed or sitting on the seabed. And this is an area of what we call beyond national jurisdictions, so this is that part of the ocean that doesn’t form part of any state but rather is in the global commons. What’s currently happening now is there’s a regime for exploration, so there’s quite a number of states that are assessing the profitability and feasibility of accessing minerals. But they’re moving quite quickly — probably in the next two or four years — to actually begin exploitation, so that is actually extracting the minerals. This is an environmentally risky activity, and it involves very large ships, underwater activity, and so presents a number of both environmental risks but also possible risks to other interests in the deep ocean.

[ALFONSO ASCENCIO-HERRERA]

So, at that point, it was identified that there was a need that this issue be discussed at the level of a legal working group, given the complexity of the issues involved.

[NEIL CRAIK]

That was really one of the driving reasons why the International Seabed Authority and CIGI felt it was important to create a working group to develop the expertise to look into, in a deep way, these particular issues.

[HANNAH LILY]

So, what we hope to do in this group is to look at one very small portion, but very important around liability issues, basically, if something goes wrong, who’s responsible to compensate or remediate?

[NEIL CRAIK]

So, if you think about it in a domestic context, if you have a mine on land and there’s an incident, we have very dense domestic law, negligence law, nuisance law that would compensate someone who suffered as a result of a mining accident. We don’t have those laws in the middle of the ocean, so we actually have to develop those laws.

[ALFONSO ASCENCIO-HERRERA]

And the outcome would be that the result of the working group will go to the commission, and the commission will consider it and decide as to what to do with it.

[HANNAH LILY]

We’re looking to assist; we’re not looking to come up with very concrete conclusions or even recommendations. We want to explore options and implications and try and sort of lay them out, ready for the LTC to take it to the next stage.

[NEIL CRAIK]

Effectively, there needs to be some policy and political direction at this stage, and we’re really providing the foundation to enable the International Seabed Authority to do that.

[ALFONSO ASCENCIO-HERRERA]

I’m really struck by the quality of the discussions, and I’m sure that these will provide a good input for the commission for them to pursue their work.