WHEN PRESIDENTDonald Trump signed an executive order on April 24th authorising seabed mining for critical minerals, he meant to free American companies from international constraints and license their roving hands to search for precious stones on the bottom of the deepest oceans—Earth’s last mining frontier. The order was a bombshell. Though America has never ratified theUNConvention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), under which the regulation of seabed mining sits, it had long accepted its provisions as customary international law. And the International Seabed Authority (ISA), created underUNCLOS, currently forbids mining.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “The last frontier”
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