In The International Seabed Authority and the Precautionary Principle, Aline L. Jaeckel offers an insightful analysis of the work of the International Seabed Authority and examines whether the Authority is implementing the precautionary principle in regulating and managing deep seabed minerals.

Clarifies legal requirements for environmental protection in deep seabed mining and the legal consequences when environmental damage occurs.

The content and status of the precautionary principle remains highly debated and various questions arise, such as its status as a rule of customary international law, including its scope, addressee, triggering threshold, precautionary action measures, and eventually limits of the principle. Thus, this book examines the present state of affairs regarding the implementation of the principle in the law of the sea in different sectors, e.g. pollution of the marine environment, conservation and management of living marine resources, and transboundary transports of radioactive and hazardous wastes. In addition, it extracts evidence of its acceptance as part of customary international law, and indicates that below this level there is also an emerging practice of international law of applying the precautionary principle in a common way.

The Law of the Seabed reviews the most pressing legal questions raised by the use and protection of natural resources on and underneath the world’s seabeds. While barely accessible, the seabed plays a major role in the Earth’s ecological balance. It is both a medium and a resource, and is central to the blue economy. New uses and new knowledge about seabed ecosystems, and the risks of disputes due to competing interests, urge reflection on which regulatory approaches to pursue. The regulation of ocean activities is essentially sector-based, and the book puts in parallel the international and national regimes for seabed mining, oil and gas, energy generation, bottom fisheries, marine genetic resources, carbon sequestration and maritime security operations, both within and beyond the national jurisdiction. The book contains seven parts respectively addressing the definition of the seabed from a multidisciplinary perspective, the principles of jurisdiction delimitation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the regimes for use of non-living, living and marine biodiversity resources, the role of state and non-state actors, the laying and removal of installations, the principles for sustainable and equitable use (common heritage of mankind, precaution, benefit sharing), and management tools to ensure coexistence between activities as well as the protection of the marine environment.

This book looks at the multidisciplinary aspects of the legal, economic, and scientific aspects of deep-sea mining, whilst, providing a rich historical background on the work and progress of the International Seabed Authority over the last 25 years of its existence.

The Mineral Resources of the Sea

Knowledge of the marine environment beyond national jurisdiction and its unique biodiversity is still developing. Simultaneously, traditional uses of these areas including fishing and shipping, are intensifying and new uses are emerging such as bio-prospecting for marine genetic resources and climate change mitigation activities. This volume examines the threats to the marine environment beyond national jurisdiction from existing and emerging human uses and the adequacy of current international law provisions to protect this major part of the global environment. An analysis of key provisions in the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention and complementary principles of international environmental law reveals significant tensions between the concept of high seas freedoms and the international law obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment beyond national jurisdiction. The book compares the lack of comprehensive environmental regulation for marine resource exploitation and shipping activities beyond national jurisdiction with the best practice standards for environmental protection being developed by the International Seabed Authority for deep seabed mining exploration. Recent initiatives by the international community to study issues relating to conservation of high seas biodiversity are discussed and a range of soft and hard law options to strengthen the international law framework for protection of the marine environment beyond national jurisdiction are considered.