Research · America's Solo Run at Deep-Sea Mining: A Lease Sale Without a Global Rulebook

Research · America's Solo Run at Deep-Sea Mining: A Lease Sale Without a Global Rulebook

The United States is moving ahead with deep-sea mining outside the UN framework: the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's proposed PACM-1 lease sale is set for November 19, 2026, while The Metals Company subsidiary TMC USA pursues a consolidated exploration-and-recovery application under NOAA's DSHMRA track, with the public comment period closing October 19, 2026.

The International Seabed Authority — the body that governs mineral activity in international waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea — still has no adopted Mining Code, and its next council session is not until March 2027. The United States is not even a party to UNCLOS, so the American and international tracks may directly conflict.

Opposition keeps building: 46 countries now back a ban, moratorium, or precautionary pause, and scientists warn that seabed damage from a 1979 test site in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone still shows little sign of recovery more than four decades later.

For maritime-law watchers, this is the live case study of a fragmented permitting regime — domestic leases racing ahead of the global rulebook.

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