Old laws for new risks at sea mineral resources

Authors: Uwe K Jenisch

Publish Date: 2012/01/31

Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Pages: 169-185

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Abstract

Maritime security in a broad sense means more than piracy and terrorism This paper concentrates on the risk potential of current and future resourcerelated activities on the seabed The seabed mining of hard mineral resources—in addition to hydrocarbons—leads to new controversial maritime boundary claims of states in their effort to expand national access rights to raw materials Outer continental shelf claims in the Arctic Ocean are todays test bench for law of the sea conflicts Fiberoptic cables running through regional seas straits and land bridges may become another risky issue while the pattern of maritime transport routes is moving from Northern to Southern waters Under a mediumterm perspective the sea level rise will endanger ports and coasts Borderlines of maritime zones will move and thus generate more injustice and conflicts among states The tools to solve borderline conflicts and options for dispute settlement are available in UNCLOS Some other legal gaps are covered by the 2005 SUA Convention and by bilateral agreements while resolutions by the UN Security Council begin to broaden rights of intervention and interdiction The need for new laws remainsOver the past years we have witnessed that maritime violence terrorism and piracy are continuing to spread while the international legal system of interference rights and counter measures remains full of gaps in addressing these issues In other words the inadequacies of the legal system are part of the problem of security at seaPiracy terrorism and the wave of political transitions in the Middle East and in Northeastern Africa dominate the headlines and plague the maritime transport sector which truly is the backbone of globalization In fact maritime transport represents the first and foremost globalized sector of the world economy At the same time there are other disturbing events in the larger marine environment that threaten society in different ways Major technological disasters such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the nuclear catastrophe in Japan caused by the 2011 earthquake and ensuing tsunami are drawing public attention to further forms of environmental risk Other critical developments such as rising sea levels attributable to climate change are highly certain to occur although uncertainty remains as to their extent Over the remaining 89 years of this century the global average sea level rise could range between 04 and 2 m with a most likely value of 08 m1 Moreover the race for the last frontier of seabed resources in the deeper ocean has begunMaritime security has many aspects not to forget piracy and terror which are at the center of deliberations and resolutions of the UN Security Council and thus may serve as a starting point for new law as is shown in Section 5 In any case governments police forces coast guards and navies are well advised to understand security in a broader sense while their “coastguarding” functions grow in littoral waters and beyondThe world economy still suffering from the financial crisis is currently experiencing increasing commodity prices Industrial associations and governments are monitoring patterns of supply and demand not only for standard minerals like iron but also for highvalue metals eg nickel copper titanium gold and rare earth elements REE like yttrium indium gallium neodymium and germanium Kato et al 2011 which are important for semiconductors photovoltaics lasers liquid crystal displays fiberoptic cables and other hightech products used in both civilian and military applications The demand for raw materials is expected to double in the next 25 years The EU has identified a list of 14 out of 41 critical raw materials2 which are irreplaceable in key industries The supply risk is due to the fact that a high share of production comes from China3 Russia South Africa the Democratic Republic of Congo and Brazil This production concentration cannot easily be substituted for or augmented by other sources The political–economic stability of some of the producing states is questionable and in the case of Congo nearing collapse The list of failing states will grow where humanitarian and environmental risks may get completely out of control The risks for the supply chains are selfevident old and newly industrialized states are competing over prices and access rights to the remaining raw materials while the lowhanging fruits have been picked As a consequence interest in marine mineral resources is growing again With only 29 of the worlds surface being land and 71 being sea there is every reason to believe that terrestrial minerals occur in deposits on and in the seabed as well The Pacific Ocean alone is larger than all land masses on earth

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