Welcome to the Proceedings Podcast. I'm Bill Hamblett, the Editor-in-Chief at the U.S. Naval Institute. Today is Monday, the 26th of January, the first official snow day of 2026 here in the Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Annapolis area. Good to have you on board, everyone. Most everyone in this area is working from home today, thanks to about 10 inches of snow and sleet. Lots of sleet we received yesterday. Roads are a mess, but I did go sledding twice yesterday and today, so great time. This episode is brought to you by General Dynamics Electric Boat. GD Electric Boat has a 126-year legacy of delivering the submarines our nation needs to defend our freedoms and those of our allies. To ensure our nation's defense now at this critical time in history, GDEB is investing in the next generation of shipbuilders and infrastructure to answer the call. It was EB then and it's EB now. Learn more at gdeb.com forward slash about slash EB now. All right. My guest today is Navy Lieutenant Commander Jim Halsell. He's the author of a very thought-provoking article in the January issue of Proceedings that's titled The Future of Sovereignty in the Deep Sea. Jim, welcome back to the show. Hey, good afternoon, Bill. Great to be back. Thanks for having me. All right. So the last time you were on the show was last year when you were a federal executive fellow assigned full time to the Naval Institute. You've since been assigned to a new job in the Pentagon. So welcome to the five-sided funny farm or the five-sided wind tunnel, as some would joke about it. But yeah, let's just dive deep into your article. So the topic is deep seabed mining. Our listeners might be familiar with the fact that there are nodules on the seabed that contain a whole lot of minerals, including manganese and cobalt and other rare earths. So let's start with what's down there and where in the ocean are we talking about and how deep do you have to go to get to these things. Excellent. Well, you're 100% correct. Some of the most interesting minerals that are down there are things like cobalt, nickel, manganese. There are various rare earth elements, and all of these have applications ranging from advanced battery technologies, which are going to be crucial in any sort of forthcoming energy transition. And they also have a ton of defense applications. So the rare earths in particular are key to making really high powered magnets. And those can be used in anything from IC circuits to radar technologies and all sorts of sensors. We're talking about water that is very deep. It's called deep seabed mining for a reason, not just seabed mining. In many cases, we're talking about water depths that are 10 to 14,000 feet below the surface. And one of the areas that gets the most attention when you start the conversation is an area called the Clarion-Clipperton zone. Now, the Clarion-Clipperton zone is a segment of the seafloor that's just a little bit smaller than the continental United States. And it's located roughly southeast of Hawaii, notably outside of the U.S.'s exclusive economic zone, but southeast of Hawaii and sort of west of Peru, basically, in that region of the Pacific Ocean. There are other areas of the seafloor. They're also suspected to be rich in these minerals. There are some areas in the Indian Ocean. There's another area that is sort of north of Guam, west of Midway that some are calling the Magellanic Mining Zone. But most of the attention in the modern day is that Clarion-Clipperton zone. Got it. So talk a little bit about the process for finding and extracting these modules from the deep sea. And, you know, who's got that technology? Like, is it, are there, you know, lots of companies, lots of countries out there, or is it just a few because it's so, so deep and hard to reach? Well, so the technology has actually been slowly developing for decades. In fact, if you remember when the Soviets lost their ballistic missile submarine and the CIA attempted to recover it, the cover story for that operation was a ship designed to mine manganese nodules off the deep seabed. So, you know, that's kind of where we were. And where we are now is the idea that we can use surveys, either space-based assets, hydrographic surveys from ships, various types of sonar technology to locate these nodule fields. And then once we locate them, you know, the most common method at this point is to lower an autonomous vehicle to the seafloor. And I kind of always joke, it's kind of like a like a like an underwater. So these nodules are basically these potato sized rocks that are sitting on the bottom of the seafloor, chock full of these minerals that we all want very dearly. And we lower these robot Roombas down to the bottom of the ocean and they sort of mow the lawn, collecting both the nodules and the top layer of silt from the seafloor. The nodules are then separated from the silt and they are pumped, pressed, lifted to the surface where a vessel would be standing by to collect the nodules. And then one of the more problematic aspects of that technique is then that silt that is is not sent to the collection vessel is actually discharged. And it can really cause these these large plumes of dust. And that's one of the main critiques of this technology is we aren't exactly sure what the environmental impact of that large plume of dust coming back out of these vehicles, these recovery vehicles is. Yeah, got it. Jim, I should have mentioned when I introduced you that you've been working on your PhD on this topic, right? So you've been not a full-time, but almost full-time student at Johns Hopkins SICE, which is a prestigious university here in Washington. And your PhD thesis is on this topic of deep seabed mining and national sovereignty, right? So talk about that a little bit, you know. Certainly. So my doctoral research at Johns Hopkins SICE, it really is centered on historical episodes of maritime authority expanding, right? So, you know, throughout history, territorial seas were once at three nautical miles because of what we call a cannon shot rule, right? a nation could possess as much as it could enforce over. And that was limited by the range of the cannon from three nautical miles. It eventually ended up out at 12 nautical miles. Inclusive economic zone regime that's currently 200 nautical miles. At some point that was asserted by particularly a group of South American countries. The idea that countries were entitled to minerals in the continental shelf, that was mostly predicated by what's called the Truman Proclamation. in the United States said, hey, we own the stuff in our continental shelf now. So there are all these episodes of maritime authority expanding throughout history. And what my research does is doing a case study analysis saying what factors and mechanisms were present when those episodes were successful in expanding authority. And then from there, how many of those mechanisms and factors are present in the current case of deep seabed mining? So my sort of thesis underneath all this is that in the not too distant future we may see a nation attempt to assert some form of de facto sovereignty de facto and that it not necessarily recognized by the international community, but they have functional control over a portion of the area beyond national jurisdiction that is rich in these seabed minerals. Thank you for giving that background, especially about what you've been studying and your doctoral thesis and research. So I just want to talk a little bit more about the sovereignty issue, because there's a lot of that in your article. And things really get thorny in that area of the law, right? So you mentioned the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS, and that defines nations, EEZs, exclusive economic zones, extending out from the coast about 200 nautical miles. And beyond that, you just mentioned it real quickly, is an area called the ABNJ, the Area beyond national jurisdiction. And talk a little bit more about that, what it is and why it's so important to this deep sea mining topic. Certainly. So as you've just outlined, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was initially finalized in 1982 and then implemented in 1994 with the 1994 implementation agreement, delineates that regime of territorial seas and among other things, exclusive economic zone and then the area beyond national jurisdiction. So another thing that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS did was establish what's called the International Seabed Authority. Now, the International Seabed Authority is headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica, and they are the sort of arm of the United Nations that is in charge of regulating and permitting seabed mining in the area beyond national jurisdiction. If you're actually within a country's exclusive economic zone or certainly within their territorial seas, then the process of deep seabed mining is really regulated by that nation's domestic law. But out in the Arabian national jurisdiction, the International Seabed Authority is responsible for the permitting and regulatory process. Now, unfortunately, that set of regulations, which is sort of loosely referred to as the mining code, does not exist. Negotiations on writing that code has largely stalled since 2014, mostly over some of those environmental concerns that I mentioned earlier. But there are a set of regulations that exist for what's called exploration. So the exploitation process, that is actual harvesting of these minerals for commercial purposes, is not yet regulated, not yet authorized in the area beyond national jurisdiction. What you can do is file with the International Seabed Authority for a permit to conduct exploration. And over about 36 of those permits have been issued by the International Seabed Authority. And one thing that's troubling, you know, from my perspective, is that a majority, more than any other country, China has received about six of those permits through various state backed entities. So when you're looking at who currently has sort of the leg up in deep seabed mining in international waters, so to speak, China is very much at the forefront of this race. Got it. Talk a little bit more about the power that that ISA has, the International Seabed Authority. Does it have power or is it like a lot of international law where the power kind of comes from the fact that nations have acceded some power to that organization, right? And they've decided, hey, we're going to be part of this. There's a committee we're going to we're going to abide by until we don't. We're going to abide by the decisions of this committee or the decisions of this, you know, regulatory agency, if you will. Am I off there? Personally, I'm a bit of a pessimist when it comes to international law. I do sort of feel like it's at best an instrument for the strong to do what they will while the weak endure what they must. but it does in theory have the ability to regulate deep seabed mining in the area beyond national jurisdiction. So they could deny a permit or they could retract a permit, which would theoretically, you know, end any sort of economic viability for a company to continue mining. And the primary body of the ISA that would make those decisions is the council. And what's interesting is to have a seat on the council, you have to be a member state, a party state to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. So as most of your listeners will know, the United Nations, excuse me, the United States has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We are not a party state. Therefore, we do not have a seat at the table, so to speak, at the International Seabed authority. Now, who has ratified UNCLOS and who does have a seat at that table? Countries like China, countries like Russia, right? Some of our biggest competitors. And so what's really interesting actually is in 1994, when the United Nations Convention on the Lawless E. Implementation Agreement was drafted, there was a provision in that document that said the nation with the largest economy at that time would be granted a permanent seat on the rulemaking council of the International Seabed Authority. That nation was the United States. And so that was meant to be a bit of a sweetener in the pot to try and pull the United States into ratifying on clause. That seat is there to this day waiting on us. It's the only permanent seat on that council. Otherwise, it rotates. And it would be a fairly significant seat to occupy because, as we've just discussed, we would have a seat at the rulemaking table for not only the exploration process, the permit approval process, but actually writing the rules for how exploitation occurs as we move into that phase of deep seabed mining. Got it. Jim, I think it's worth just bringing up the fact that I can't remember a CNO, Chief of Naval Operations, or a Commandant of the Coast Guard, who has not advocated for the United States ratifying UNCLOS, right? So for the most part, people who are professional, you know, maritime and naval experts in the United States since 1994, have wanted the United States to be a, you know, a treaty party to UNCLOS. And we act, you know, the Navy, you know, when we operate international waters, we operate in accordance with UNCLOS. What's the and I don't want you to get any kind of political hot water, but what is what has kept the United States from ratifying UNCLOS? What you know, there's been some people it's mostly in the Senate where a few people have held that up, correct, for a long time now, for 30 years. From a military strategy perspective, pretty consistently, leaders of the sea services advocate for the ratification of UNCLOS. So UNCLOS would be an international treaty. Therefore, it would require two thirds of the Senate to approve to ratify that treaty. And there has never been the political appetite for that. So originally in 1982, President Reagan had some strong objections to the language of the original treaty. and those concerns were largely predicated on actually deep seabed mining So many of the provisions related to deep seabed mining in the original 1982 text would have required technology transfer between states So if you wanted to participate in deep seabed mining, you basically had to agree to transfer the details of the technology you were going to use to do so. And it also would have established something called the enterprise. And the enterprise was sort of the arm of the International Seabed Authority that would have gone out and actually conducted deep seabed mining almost on behalf of a consortium of like the smaller states, right? The non-major powers. So effectively, you could have had this sort of weird situation where U.S. dollars and technology were going to make money for communist countries, given that this was still during the Cold War. So that idea was pretty much a non-starter. The other concerns at the time of the original signing in 1982 were concerns which are a tale as old as time with international treaties, concerns over abdicating national sovereignty. Anytime that you notionally submit to some sort of supranational authority, there's the risk of abdicating national sovereignty. Now, the 1994 implementation agreement that we talked about earlier, it actually fundamentally changed slash got rid of the technology transfer requirements for deep seabed mining, as well as it sort of defanged that the enterprise entity, which would have, you know, sort of redistributed profits from deep seabed mining to other countries. What remains largely to date primarily is the concern about maintaining sovereignty over the high seas, over U.S. interests and not wanting to commit to sort of third party arbitration or rulemaking bodies. And that is that's just a concern that's unpalatable to some lawmakers. To some lawmakers, yeah. But as you point out, if the United States isn't there and part of those, you know, committees or agencies, China certainly is, right? And so you can have an international group of people in that ISA, in this case, right, where China might be the biggest kid in the group or the wealthiest nation represented in the committee. And so therefore, could sway the decisions that come out of that agency. If the U.S. isn't there, if we don't have a seat at the table, you really don't get to complain too much about the outcome. And to be frank, that is happening. So as part of my doctoral research, I made I've made two trips down to Kingston, Jamaica in the last 18 months or so. One of which was to observe the 30th session of the International Seabed Authority last July, where they were trying to progress on writing the mining code. And I can tell you, observing those sessions, that there was legitimate obstructionist behavior going on on the part of the Chinese delegation. The Chinese are not fans of the mining code being finalized because then that potentially enables enhanced scrutiny, enhanced regulation, enhanced oversight of what they are currently doing under their exploration permits. Yeah. All right. Fascinating. Okay, so now we've set the stage. We've just defined some terms. I'd like you to describe the scenario that's in your article because it's a large part of the article, maybe a third of it or so is dedicated to this potential hypothetical scenario that takes place in the Pacific, which is yet another scenario where you go, oh, geez, that could get really ugly. And it doesn't seem like a logical leap. It's not a huge leap that something like this could happen. So take us through the scenario that you set up in the article. Certainly. So there's a vignette in my article that takes place in the near future, maybe four or five years from now. And it begins with a Chinese space-based surveillance asset, a satellite, monitoring a portion of the Pacific Ocean, where notionally, in the anecdote, the Chinese have an ISA mining contract. It's in an area that I referred to earlier that I call the Magellanic Mining Zone, sort of north of Guam, west of Midway, kind of northeast of a tiny island called Manami Torishima, which has been the basis for some somewhat disputed economic, exclusive economic zone claims on the part of Japan actually. So we're out in the middle of the Northwest Pacific kind of you can imagine. The idea is that this satellite is monitoring the area because the Chinese have the mining contract there. They're very interested in who's coming and going. And they spot a Japanese hydrographic survey ship that's just there doing, you know, hydrographic surveys for scientific purposes in international waters, completely legal. So based on that spotting report, you know, they vector in unmanned aerial vehicles. And so now you have persistent, you know, maritime surveillance happening from unmanned systems, which is increasingly viable in today's prevailing technologies. And then after, you know, a few days of these unmanned systems monitoring this Japanese vessel, the Chinese Coast Guard gets sent in. So the Chinese Coast Guard begins to follow this vessel, which is completely feasible and happens all the time every day in the East China Sea and South China Sea. And then in response to a Chinese Coast Guard vessel being sent, the Japanese send a destroyer from the JMSDF. So now you have in close proximity a Japanese research vessel, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel and a Japanese warship. So, you know, as happens, one thing leads to another and we end up with a collision, which just really spins off into a level of diplomatic fever. And it ultimately, somewhat outlandishly, sorry, the most, I think, the biggest jump in my fictional scenario here is then it caps with China claiming sovereignty over Manami Torishima on the basis that the Japanese have not occupied that feature. And that then they are now entitled to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone based on Manami Torishima. So there is some legalese in UNCLOS about what constitutes sovereignty of an island. Sorry, that's not actually UNCLOS. That's dictated elsewhere. But one of the ideas is that you have to inhabit an island for it to be considered sovereign territory. So the idea is that China leverages sort of that legal loophole as the icing on the cake. And now not only do they have the ability to lock down access into the area beyond national jurisdiction where they have those mining permits, but they also have that 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. And so it's easy to think that a country could essentially impose more or less a blockade based on one of these mining contracts, because, you know, written into these permits is a requirement to maintain the basic safety of the vessels or the infrastructure engaged in that and to make sure that in general, the area is safe where that mining is occurring. So I think it's not unreasonable to think that a country like China Russia could say we own the permit for this region So we have to ensure safety for this region So we are going to prevent the vessels of the United States from coming through this region because they're a safety concern. They behave unprofessionally. And so now you effectively have a portion of what would otherwise be high seas sort of on lockdown. And depending on where that is, that could have some major strategic impacts. If it was in the vicinity of the Magellanic mining zone, that potentially cuts some pretty significant sea lines of communication between Hawaii, Japan, or the wider Western Pacific. Yeah, you mentioned Guam too, right? Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And if you're paying attention to how the Chinese have built up their sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and built up their small little atolls into islands with military bases, is, you know, this is not a total stretch of the imagination, the scenario that you've set out in your article. So, okay. So what actions could the United States and its allies take to avoid such a scenario? So I think the most direct, in my opinion, obvious step would be to ratify UNCLOS. As you pointed out earlier, we already espouse the principles of UNCLOS in our domestic law, and we consider them to be tenants of customary international law. So we live by UNCLOS already. And when we try to enforce the tenants of UNCLOS, like freedom of navigation, for example, we're at a disadvantage because we aren't actually signed on to that treaty. And so we would have firmer ground to stand on in our challenges to unlawful assertions of sovereignty at sea by nations like China and Russia, if we, in fact, became party to UNCLOS. And more broadly, just the support for these, you know, the international rules based order. So some of my doctoral research actually suggests that when a body of water is in sort of a contested status or its legal status is ambiguous, it is easier for a maritime authority assertion to end up successful. If there's some sort of ambiguity over who owns that body of water, it's easier, it's more likely that it's successful for a country to come along and say, oh, it's mine. If there is a clear delineation, as is the case with the area beyond national jurisdiction, those assertions tend to be less successful. So more broadly, just continuing to adhere to the rules-based international order, continuing to conduct operations like freedom of navigation operations and challenging those unlawful assertions and continuing to support our allies that are affected by those unlawful expansions of maritime authority, I think is the biggest step we can take. Yeah, I'll foot stomp one of the points that you made, which is, you know, in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait, when we do, you know, particularly freedom of navigation operation, the United States Navy does freedom of navigation operations. And we, you know, we point out that in court, in accordance with international law, the Chinese like to push that back in our face quite often where we say, where they say, well, you haven't even signed unclosed. Why are you lecturing us about international law? Right. And so your point is well taken that, you know, if you're not a signatory to something and then you you try to stand on that legal basis, you know, it's pretty easy for the other guy to go. what are you talking about? You can't lecture me. You know, you haven't even signed this. You're not even party to this. We are, right? And we get that often. You know, I think our captains on our bridges of our warships get that from time to time. And certainly our diplomats get that in exchange from, you know, diplomatic de marshes that happen at embassies. And so, yeah, I think that's a really, you know, good point. We are kind of running out of time here, but, you know, any last minute saved rounds? Right now, the rules are pretty black and white, right? The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea says anything outside of that 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone is the area beyond national jurisdiction. It's international waters. It point blank says like no country can assert sovereignty in the area beyond national jurisdiction. historically uh the limits of maritime authority were the limits of maritime authority until someone pushed them further right so territorial seas were three nautical miles the whole world agreed to it and then iceland came along and asserted fishing rights and territorial seas out to 12 nautical miles and now everybody recognizes 12 nautical miles uh the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone didn't exist. And then Peru, Ecuador, and Chile said, we are claiming 200 nautical miles, and now the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone exists. So to sort of dismiss concerns about what I call sovereignty creeping into the area beyond national jurisdiction, because that's simply what the rules say, is to sort of turn a blind eye to history, right? The limit is only the limit until somebody comes along and pushes it further. And sometimes, you know, they're successful in doing that. So not accommodating any sort of expansion of maritime authority. And I'm very careful to use the terms maritime authority to delineate from legal recognized sovereignty. So de facto sovereignty in my book is a form of maritime authority. Right. But, you know, accommodation by the wider international community is what enables these expansions to be successful in the end. So just continuing to push back against modifications to a regime that we support that we think is the best arrangement in the prevailing international order, I think, is really key. Yeah, that's a great point. Really well put. All right. Well, the article is titled The Future of Sovereignty in the Deep Sea. It's in the January issue of Proceedings. The author is my guest today, Lieutenant Commander Jim Halsell. Jim, thanks again for writing for Proceedings and being on the show today. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for having me. Yeah, great conversation. All right. Two weeks from now, we'll be in San Diego for the annual Naval Institute AFCEA-sponsored West Conference. That's 10 to 12 February at the San Diego Convention Center. It is free to all active duty members. The CNO, Secretary of the Navy, and all three Sea Service Chiefs will be there. To register and find out more, go to westconference.org. Reminder, this episode was brought to you by General Dynamics Electric Boat. GD Electric Boat has a 126-year legacy of delivering the submarines our nation needs to defend our freedoms and those of our allies. To ensure our nation's defense now at this critical time in history, GDEB is investing in the next generation of shipbuilders and infrastructure to answer the call. It was EB then and it's EB now. Learn more at gdeb.com slash about slash EB now. If you like the show, ring the bell, subscribe, tell a friend. Until next episode, remember, victory begins at the Naval Institute. Thank you.
