DSHMRA does not give mining companies the needed certainty they need to operate in international waters

But the DSHMRA does not grant that authority, coun- tered Caitlyn Antrim, executive director of the Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans, a nonpartisan educa- tional group whose purpose is to inform public discourse regarding U.S. interests in accession to the Convention. She said the DSHMRA was a framework and never was considered, in and of itself, sufficient. “It was intended to be a transition to the Law of the Sea Convention and, in fact, it has those provisions in there saying that when a Law of the Sea Convention is in force for the United States, those provisions of the law that are not appropriate to it will be inactive,” Antrim told Seapower. “If only U.S. companies were mining the deep ocean floor or, as in the 1980s, only non-parties to the Convention had such capability, then operating under domestic legislation outside the Convention might be an option for business investors. “But now, with 12 sites being explored under the Convention, and five more applications up for review this summer, customary behavior has already established the Convention as the only legal regime for seabed min- ing beyond national jurisdiction that has international legitimacy,” she said. “And with the International Seabed Authority preparing to develop regulations for commer- cial exploration of seabed minerals, the domestic U.S. regime is falling even further behind.”