International and domestic laws on deep seabed mining

The international legal frameworks and rules concerning the deep seabed mining and marine environmental conservation have been consolidated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). On the other hand, the environmental principles represented by Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to pursuit the conservation of the marine ecosystem have been commonly accepted as the norm to be observed internationally. In 2011 the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea issued the Advisory Opinion, which required the States to apply a precautionary approach and best environmental practices and to adopt domestic laws and regulations which are reasonably appropriate. Japan aspires to be a new oceanic state in harmonization of the peaceful and positive development and use of the oceans with the conservation of the marine environment (Article 1 of Basic Act of Ocean Policy), but enacting the domestic legislation which measures up to the international standard is delayed. The first purpose of this article is to analyze such legal problems issuing form the discrepancies between the international and domestic laws regulating the Deep Sea Mining and point to the immediate subjects to be solved. The article also aims to give the overview of the legal framework concerning the Deep Sea Mining and thus contribute to the research and education of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (TUMSAT), in particular, the Department of Marine Resources and Energy, which was newly established in 2017.