Conceptual model for the management of international resources: The case of seabed minerals

Abstract

Abstract Currently, minerals are obtained mainly from the land‐based reserves, but as a result of political and economic developments in the mining industries, an alternative source could be the seabed beyond national jurisdiction. Although both developing and developed countries agree with the notion that manganese nodules are a part of the “common heritage of mankind,”; they disagree on the type of regulatory regime that should be established. The efficiency oriented Free‐Access Regimes (FAR) of the developed countries attempts to maximize the economic rent before dealing with the distributional problems through fiscal policy. On the other hand, the regime set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is premised on the New International Economic Order and seeks a preferred or discriminating distribution of the economic rent. In this article, a conceptual model is developed to evaluate the alternative management systems of FAR and UNCLOS.