Plans by Swiss-Dutch offshore energy giant Allseas to operate deep-sea mining machinery for The Metals Company (Nasdaq: TMC) have “directly violated” the UN’s Law of the Sea, a legal analysis finds.
The threat of deep-sea mining is now “no longer a hypothetical prospect but a present and advancing fact,” Professor André Nollkaemper of the University of Amsterdam says in a new study commissioned by Greenpeace Netherlands. The International Seabed Authority that enforces the UN law already declared TMC’s efforts illegal in early 2025 and began probing the company’s compliance.
Allseas partnered with TMC last month for in plans for the world’s first deep-sea polymetallic nodule mining project. TMC is attempting to dodge UN oversight because the ISA hasn’t been able to finalize a framework for commercial deep-sea mining. Instead, the company got a permit from the United States, which hasn’t ratified the UN law. And on May 30, TMC began fighting the ISA at the Law of the Sea tribunal in Germany.
The companies are planning two collector vehicles operating more than 4 km below the ocean surface to harvest 3 million wet tonnes a year. Advocates say seabed mining could unlock resources without the need for conventional open-pit mining. For years environmental activists including Greenpeace have opposed the idea for its potential impacts on the marine ecosystem.
International oversight
The nodules, scattered at bottom of the Pacific Ocean in area between Hawaii and Mexico, are said to boast a rich abundance of minerals needed to power critical industries.
At the tribunal, TMC has requested “provisional measures” — essentially a legal injunction — demanding that the court force the ISA to freeze its inquiries while the broader legal battle plays out. The public hearings for TMC’s cases against the ISA are scheduled to start July 2.
‘Legally bound’
But Nollkaemper said the Dutch government “is legally bound to intervene against a corporate violation that is no longer a future threat, but an active reality.”
Greenpeace Netherlands said it and five major environmental organizations have demanded that Dutch leaders impose “immediate regulatory intervention” to prevent AllSeas from partaking in “unregulated” deep sea extraction.
“Allseas appears entirely prepared to join forces with the Trump administration to carve up our oceans for private profit,” Sascha Landshoff, a campaigner at Greenpeace Netherlands, said in a release. “This means illegal corporate mining operating entirely outside of international oversight.”