UNCLOS III and the struggle for law: The elusive customary law of seabed mining

Abstract

Abstract The negotiation of the recently concluded U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea was prolonged and complicated by political, ideological, and economic differences among the parties. A further, insufficiently recognized, source of difficulty concerning the seabed mining regime has been the ambiguous status of the customary law of seabed mining. According to the developed states, seabed mining is within the scope of customary high seas freedoms, while for some developing states seabed exploitation is a recent technological innovation not encompassed by the traditional high seas regime. This paper argues that these differences of legal opinion have led the parties to employ diverse negotiating strategies, and have generated contrasting perceptions of the consequences of the failure to conclude a conventional seabed mining regime. Furthermore, the legal disagreements among the parties reveal that the consensually based, traditional process of forming customary law is under considerable stress, a devel...