They can’t exploit them—yet—as seabed mining in international waters is currently prohibited. But a little-known agency affiliated with the United Nations is working furiously to write the rulebook for the nascent, and controversial, industry. (...) Billions of dollars, of course, are also at stake.
Leticia Carvalho, a Brazilian oceanographer, wants to lead the obscure yet powerful organization at the heart of these debates.
That agency is the International Seabed Authority (ISA), and it’s electing its next leader at the end of July. Established under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and a related implementation agreement in 1994, the ISA is an autonomous international organization made up of all the states parties to UNCLOS. There are currently 169 members (168 states plus the European Union).
The organization rarely makes global headlines from its perch in Kingston, Jamaica, but it is charged with regulating a potentially massive new industry that doesn’t yet exist—and the person at its helm is set to play a highly influential role in shaping its future.