The world’s ocean floors contain substantial deposits of critical minerals essential for modern technology and defense systems. As nations increasingly recognize the strategic importance of these submarine resources, competition has intensified between major powers seeking to secure access and influence over their extraction and distribution.
The Global Mineral Supply Challenge
Critical minerals—cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, and rare earth elements (REEs)—form the foundation of contemporary electronics, renewable energy infrastructure, and military applications. The global supply of these materials remains heavily concentrated. One nation currently controls approximately 80 percent of rare earth mining operations worldwide and manages up to 90 percent of the refining and processing infrastructure. This same nation refines 60 percent of global lithium supplies, dominates 80 percent of cobalt refining capacity, and maintains ownership stakes in numerous extraction sites across multiple continents. Additionally, it leads production in nickel and aluminum sectors, creating substantial leverage across supply chains.
This concentration of control has demonstrated real-world consequences. In 2010, export restrictions on rare earth elements created significant disruptions to international markets and exposed vulnerabilities in existing supply networks. Contemporary sources for these minerals derive primarily from terrestrial mining operations in geopolitically unstable regions or areas with concerning labor practices, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Mozambique, and Myanmar. These supply chain risks have prompted increased attention toward alternative sources beneath the ocean surface.
Deep Seabed Resources and Extraction Possibilities
The Clarion Clipperton Zone, spanning approximately 1.7 million square miles in the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii, contains polymetallic nodules rich in cobalt, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements. These submarine deposits often exhibit higher concentrations and greater purity compared to terrestrial sources. Technological advances in autonomous underwater vehicles, remotely operated mining equipment, and real-time data transmission systems have progressively overcome previous obstacles to deep-water extraction. While large-scale commercial operations have not commenced, multiple nations and commercial entities conduct advanced testing programs, and technical assessments suggest economic viability within the coming decade.
International Legal Framework and Governance
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) designates seafloor regions beyond national jurisdiction as areas belonging to the common heritage of mankind, prohibiting unilateral sovereignty claims. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), established under UNCLOS and headquartered in Jamaica, holds responsibility for organizing, regulating, and controlling mineral-related activities in these zones. The ISA’s mandate includes issuing exploration contracts, developing exploitation regulations, ensuring environmental protection, and managing benefit-sharing arrangements.
The ISA has distributed more than 30 exploration contracts, yet has not finalized commercial exploitation regulations. Negotiations on the Mining Code have encountered repeated delays since 2014, with disagreements centering on environmental standards, financial arrangements, and enforcement mechanisms. Observers also identify additional factors influencing these negotiations, including efforts by certain nations to shape regulatory processes according to their strategic preferences.
Regional Strategic Zones and Emerging Tensions
The Magellanic Mining Zone, located in the western Pacific between the Northern Marianas Islands and Wake Island, presents a more complex jurisdictional situation. Unlike the Clarion Clipperton Zone, portions of this area fall within or adjacent to exclusive economic zones claimed by Japan and the United States, creating legal ambiguities that complicate clear governance. Multiple state-backed entities have obtained ISA permits in this zone, positioning themselves to expand influence in these contested waters.
Technology and Modern Maritime Control
Contemporary surveillance and monitoring technologies have fundamentally altered capacity for maintaining presence in remote ocean regions. Unmanned systems, satellite-based surveillance networks, and advanced underwater monitoring equipment enable persistent monitoring of vast territories. Combined with modern naval platforms including drone carriers and sophisticated surface vessels, these technologies provide mechanisms for asserting effective control over resource zones while creating ambiguity regarding the legal status of such activities.
Participation in International Decision-Making
One major power currently participates as an observer in ISA proceedings but lacks voting rights and cannot apply for seabed mining contracts or licenses. Full participation would require ratification of UNCLOS and the 1994 Agreement, processes that require domestic legislative approval. Notably, international agreements established a permanent seat on the ISA Council for the nation possessing the largest economy at the time UNCLOS entered into force in 1994. This structural provision remains unclaimed by the nation that held that economic position at that historical moment.
Enhanced engagement with international maritime governance frameworks would strengthen the position of nations seeking to maintain the ocean commons as a shared domain rather than allowing unilateral assertions of control over resource-rich areas.
Ocean Governance Under Pressure as Nations Race for Deep-Sea Minerals
A new push at the United Nations to protect the world’s oceans collides with an accelerating scramble by major powers to secure the critical minerals buried thousands of meters below the sea surface, intensifying a strategic contest that spans law, technology, and geopolitics.
The General Assembly’s latest debate on oceans and the law of the sea in New York, held on 22 September 2025, underscored how vital healthy seas are for global connectivity, sustainable development and climate action, according to the meeting’s official summary link. Yet even as diplomats reiterated the need for collective stewardship, governments and state-backed companies were advancing plans to mine cobalt-, nickel- and rare-earth-rich nodules from the deep seabed, where legal jurisdiction is shared—and often contested—under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Rival agendas are converging in remote zones such as the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the eastern Pacific and the less-studied Magellanic Mining Zone between the Northern Marianas and Wake Island. The outcome of today’s rule-making battles will shape everything from supply chains for clean-energy technologies to the balance of naval power in the Indo-Pacific.
To understand why the oceans have become a new arena of strategic competition, it helps to follow the minerals. Demand for clean-energy components, battery storage, and advanced electronics has soared, but terrestrial mining remains geographically concentrated. One country retains roughly 80 percent of global rare-earth extraction and up to 90 percent of refining capacity, while refining 60 percent of all lithium and 80 percent of cobalt. The 2010 cutoff of rare-earth exports exposed how easily that leverage can disrupt markets. Deep-sea nodules offer an alternative source—if rules for accessing them can be agreed and enforced.
Who Controls the Rules?
UNCLOS designates the seabed beyond national exclusive economic zones (EEZs) as the “common heritage of mankind” and assigns the Kingston-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) to regulate exploration and eventual exploitation. The ISA has already issued more than 30 exploration contracts but has not finalized the Mining Code that would allow commercial production. Delays stem from disagreements over environmental safeguards, royalty formulas, and verification regimes, though observers also cite maneuvering by governments eager to lock in favorable terms for their state mining champions.
Not all disputes wait for the ISA. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg lists an expanding docket that touches on “conservation and management of living resources, navigation, and delimitation of maritime zones,” illustrating how tensions extend well beyond mining leases link.
The U.S. Position—and Its Limits
Although one of the world’s largest maritime powers, the United States has never ratified UNCLOS, restricting it to observer status at the ISA. Still, Washington has begun using UNCLOS procedures where it suits national interests. In December 2023, the U.S. published the limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles, invoking UNCLOS methodologies to strengthen its claims link. The public release signaled that Washington intends to exploit elements of the treaty even while remaining outside its decision-making structures—a posture critics argue cedes influence to rivals during the critical phase of drafting exploitation rules.
Why Seabed Minerals Matter
Polymetallic nodules lying four to six kilometers below the surface contain high-grade concentrations of cobalt, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements. Samples from the CCZ show metal content sometimes an order of magnitude higher than that of many land-based ores, and they present fewer of the social and labor-rights challenges associated with terrestrial mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, or Indonesia. Advances in autonomous underwater vehicles and real-time data links have reduced the cost barriers that once kept commercial extraction theoretical. Analysts tracking pilot projects expect large-scale operations before 2035, provided regulations and financing converge.
Two Strategic Hotspots
Clarion Clipperton Zone
Covering roughly 1.7 million square miles southeast of Hawaiʻi, the CCZ is entirely in international waters. Companies and countries holding ISA exploration licenses there are racing to complete environmental baseline studies before the Mining Code is finalized. Some license-holders have already invested in collector prototypes capable of raking nodules from the seabed and lifting them to production vessels via riser pipes. Environmental groups warn that disturbing the seafloor could jeopardize fragile ecosystems created over millions of years, but proponents respond that demand for energy-transition minerals leaves few alternatives.
Magellanic Mining Zone
Farther west, between U.S.-administered Wake Island and Japan’s EEZ, lies a zone with overlapping claims and far less public data. Portions sit outside national jurisdiction, while other tracts straddle or abut declared EEZs, creating a patchwork of legal regimes. State-backed enterprises have quietly accumulated ISA exploration contracts adjacent to EEZ boundaries—moves that, critics say, could allow them to operate just beyond the reach of national permitting while still enjoying the protection of naval vessels from their flag states. Legal scholars note that because ISA rules require contractors to pay royalties into a benefit-sharing pool, the precise demarcation of license areas affects not only mineral rights but also the revenue redistributed to developing countries.
Technology as Force Multiplier
Sovereignty assertions at sea increasingly hinge on who can maintain persistent presence. Unmanned surface vehicles, satellite constellations, and seabed sensors now permit near-continuous monitoring of far-flung tracts. When paired with modern blue-water navies and drone carriers, these systems let states project authority at relatively low incremental cost. Multiple navies conduct freedom-of-navigation operations through contested areas, but the same platforms can escort survey ships or mining support vessels. The ability to fuse real-time environmental data with commercial extraction timetables gives early movers a tactical advantage that may be difficult to dislodge once nodules start flowing to shore.
Governance Gaps
Disputes reaching ITLOS often revolve around where coastal states’ rights end and the high seas begin. The tribunal’s reference to navigation and resource conservation cases highlights the difficulty of harmonizing environmental obligations with economic incentives. Meanwhile, the ISA’s protracted rule-making leaves a vacuum that private actors can exploit. Critics fear a “race to the seabed” if contractors invoke the so-called two-year rule—a clause that allows exploitation to proceed under provisional standards if the ISA fails to finalize regulations within two years of a contractor’s written notification. This prospect could force regulators into decisions before long-term ecological impacts are understood.
Environmental and Climate Stakes
Delegates at the 2025 General Assembly session linked ocean health to climate action, noting that the seas absorb roughly a quarter of anthropogenic carbon emissions link. Deep-sea mining proponents argue that securing battery metals underpins decarbonization goals and could reduce rainforest destruction by displacing some land-based mining. Environmental scientists counter that disturbing sediment clouds at depth may release stored carbon or harm microfauna crucial to carbon sequestration. The conflict pits two aspects of climate strategy against each other: rapid electrification versus ocean conservation.
What Comes Next
For the United States, Senate ratification of UNCLOS would unlock a permanent seat on the ISA Council—reserved since 1994 for the world’s largest economy—and grant U.S. firms direct access to ISA contracts. Supporters of accession say participation would let Washington shape environmental thresholds and revenue mechanisms rather than reacting from the sidelines. Opponents continue to raise sovereignty concerns, arguing that UNCLOS tribunals might infringe domestic decision-making.
Regardless of U.S. moves, the timeline for the ISA’s Mining Code is tightening. Developing states, eager for benefit-sharing revenues, align with mining companies that want regulatory certainty. Environmental coalitions and some coastal nations push for a moratorium until comprehensive risk studies are complete. Navigating those cross-currents will determine whether deep-sea mining becomes a pillar of the energy transition or the latest tragedy of the commons.
Analysis and Implications
The strategic race beneath the waves reveals an uncomfortable truth: multilateral institutions built in the late 20th century are being tested by 21st-century resource pressures. Great-power competition, once defined by oil and shipping lanes, now extends to manganese nodules and remotely operated vehicles. The balance between exploitation and conservation could reset the norms of maritime governance in ways similar to how the 1970s oil shocks rewired global energy politics. Countries that combine technological prowess, legal influence, and sustained naval presence will shape the rules—yet any perception that benefits accrue to a few could erode the legitimacy of the entire UNCLOS framework.
The next two years may prove decisive. If the ISA finalizes a robust Mining Code with transparent oversight, deep-sea minerals could diversify supply chains while funding ocean research. If rule-making stalls and unilateral actions proliferate, the world may witness a fragmented seascape where environmental harm and strategic friction rise in tandem. The choice lies not only with diplomats in Kingston or New York but also with legislatures deciding whether to ratify, companies choosing how aggressively to push technology, and publics weighing the urgency of climate mitigation against the sanctity of the deep.
Sources
- https://press.un.org/en/2025/ga12740.doc.htm
- https://www.itlos.org/en/main/latest-news/
- https://usun.usmission.gov/statement-unga-79-agenda-item-75-a-oceans-and-the-law-of-the-sea/
