Resource Security and the Neo-Mercantilists of the Deep-Sea
Executive Summary
Deep sea is becoming a contentious geopolitical field.
The overwhelming majority of the seabed is located under international waters governed by the UNCLOS regime and the ISA.
Huge amounts of minerals found on the seabed represent a tremendous potential for the global demand.
While legally being a global common, the seabed and its resources are increasingly becoming the target of resource security strategies.
Neo-mercantilism emerges as an explaining framework for analysing states’ actions regarding deep sea mining.
Deep sea mining is controversial as it can present a risk for the environment.
The Deep-Sea Bonanza
The Seabed is increasingly becoming a contentious space for the mineral resources that lie there. This new kind of competition reflects the ongoing creation of a novel “subterranean” geopolitical field echoing the vertical expansion of human spatial capabilities that is occurring above our heads as well as beneath us, here under the oceans.
Deep down in the sea, tremendous amounts of manganese nodules (MN), cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts (CFC), seafloor massive sulfides (SMS), and even natural gas are coveted in the face of an ever-growing demand, lowering outputs from ore deposits on land, and geopolitical hurdles. Estimated quantities of about 21,110 Mt of MN in the Clarion-Clipperton-Zone, 7,533 Mt of CFC in the Prime Crust Zone, and 600 Mt of SMS on the neo-volcanic zones of mid-ocean ridges are enticing government and industrial actors around the world. Due to the concentration of valuable elements such as manganese, cobalt, copper, and nickel, the two former minerals are believed to have a “high” impact on global metal markets. More specifically, the rising demand is particularly fueled by emerging economies, which are currently experiencing significant population growth and improvements in their standard of living, necessitating a greater quantity and diversity of minerals to supply both domestic and foreign markets. Even if this apparent narrative of scarcity can be politically constructed, the pressure on “critical” raw materials is undeniable.
Towards the Harvest of the Forbidden Fruit?
The crucial point here is that the majority of these resources are found beyond national jurisdictions and are thus located in the “Area”, that is the seabed under international waters, which is managed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA)[1]. While they are supposed to be part of the “common heritage of all mankind”[2], there are growing signs showing that they tend to be the goods of an excludable and subtractable appropriation. In other words, the boundary between res communis and res nullius appears to be very thin.
With the tripling of exploration contracts between 2010 and 2020 and the ultimatum set to the ISA for allowing exploitation under the “two-year rule” by Nauru in 2021 after a decade of dithering, extraction for commercial purposes is closer than ever.
Deep seabed mining machines manufactured by Nautilus Minerals, Image courtesy of Nautilus Minerals
The Four Neo-Mercantilists Rules
In that regard, the geopolitics of deep-sea mining can be analysed through the lens of resource security, where states are looking for a “relative safety and source diversification” of their resources’ supply (p. 81). Accordingly, new “resource security strategies” are being developed in response to issues like China’s hegemonic position vis-à-vis Rare Earth Elements (REE), which accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world's existing production.
A well-known strategy to achieve resource security is through mercantilist policies. Mercantilism is characterised by governments using their economy to strengthen state authority at the expense of other nations. From the 16th through the 18th century, it had predominated as the economic system in the West. Once believed to be a dusty theory belonging to the past, the actions of many modern states suggest the opposite. For this reason, this resource (neo-)mercantilism has recently attracted a renewed interest as evidenced by Humphreys or McMichael in 2013. Among the various aspects of the concept, it must be highlighted that states are concerned about the inputs from industries being impacted by imperfect contracting, collusion, geographic concentration, and conflict. In response to these threats, states exercise control and influence over suppliers, diversify supply content and transit, generate inventories, and provide security for protecting assets. Increasing resource security concerns and competitive policy emulation, particularly in North-East Asia, with a particular focus on China and the United States, worsen this phenomenon. Looking down at the deep sea with this perspective reveals insightful features[3].
Firstly, the sheer act of paying attention to the “Area” alone may be seen as including the seabed in the geographical wallet of resource supply, a diversification trend supported by state agencies.
Secondly, states are taking the lead where control over a potential resource supply is assured by national firms holding the projects regarding controlling and influencing. Therefore, State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) make up the bulk of exploration contractors. Only 4 of them out of the 22 listed with the ISA are effectively privately owned.
Thirdly, it is conceivable that the present legal framework already meets the needs of the involved countries possibly preventing them from shifting to exploitation, which would stress most of their current course of action. Exploration is SOEs’ preferred resource security option. Even if no exploitation licences have been issued so far, the paucity for such a request buttresses the previous argument. This then appears to be a way to remotely inventory resources that will be available in the future.
Fourthly, military action is a frequent resort to secure the resource and the supply demonstrated by Klare or Leverett in 2008. In that respect, a major military power made a historic decision by bringing up the topic of natural resources in a report intended to present a “ministerial strategy for mastering the deep seas”. By inter alia referring to the “Area” and its resources when calling for the affirmation of a renewed ambition (p. 8), this strategy is clear as to the relevant jurisdictions, which can specifically include the seabed beyond French territorial waters. Most notably, while the organisation and control of that space is subject to the sole authority of the ISA, France intends to use the seabed’s natural resources as one justification to involve the armed forces in order to safeguard them from competitive threats. Even more so, this has been perceived as a larger effort to “conquer” the seabed. This vision is, however, not contradictory with the latest allegedly conservatist position of the country on that matter, as substantiated above.
High Stakes Bid in the Age of Global Environmental Degradation
The future of the seabed is uncertain. The formidable amount of minerals hidden in the depth of the oceans are legally supposed to be a common good of humanity. Yet, there is a clear risk that it might instead be seized by individual states in a zero-sum game common in realist thinking. The environment could be a major loser of such an extraction. Recently, more than 5,000 new species have been catalogued in the Clarion-Clipperton-Zone. They and their habitats would undoubtedly be endangered to a certain degree if exploitation was to begin. These concerns have noticeably driven several calls for a moratorium on deep sea mining initiated by the industries as well as at the intergovernmental level. The ambitious High Seas Treaty aims to address them. After decades in the making process, a historic agreement was reached in March. Notwithstanding this achievement, only time will tell us if the formal signing convened on the 19 and 20 June is going to confirm, or not, an unprecedented turn for the conservation of marine nature[4].
Footnotes
[1] Article 157 of the UNCLOS
[2] Article 136 of the UNCLOS
[3] Takeuchi, S. (2023). Resource security, territorialisation and the geopolitics of deep-sea mining. Unpublished manuscript.
[4] General Assembly, decision 77/556 of 18 April 2023