The Ocean Is Not a Corporate Escape Hatch, by Fransiscus Nanga Roka

The growing competition for seabed minerals is really a competition to write the rules. What you might call “national provider authorization” if companies can pursue that even as they hold contracts for going after things in a global commons, humanity could be on a track towards an early-modern world of competing national scopes over resources where commercial ambition runs one direction and public accountability runs the other.

The aforementioned occurred on July 18, 2026, when the Seabed Disputes Chamber (SDC) of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea unanimously ordered provisional-measures in two disputes initiated by Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd., both subsidiaries of The Metals Company (TMC), against the International Seabed Authority. The Hamburg proceedings concerned the challenged investigation into adherence to the international seabed regime

The commercial backdrop is explicit. TMC announced that its U.S. subsidiary had submitted an application for a commercial recovery permit and exploration licenses with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under American seabed-mining laws on April 29, 2025. Those are polymetallic nodules with commercially valuable metals.

This garage sale of megastructures was under the auspices of an inquiry ordered by the ISA Council to determine whether certain contracts may have been breached, including actions that might conflict with the multilateral framework established by the UN Convention on the Law of Sea. On July 21, 2025, that mandate was adopted.

However, the court does not allow for a simple proclamation of corporate defeat.

The sought for freezing was not granted by the Chamber. It prescribed procedural safeguards instead. As for NORI, it identified a concrete and immediate risk of non-repairable harm to asserted procedural rights and instructed the ISA to clarify certain procedures and questions relevant to its handling of this case, allowing the parties time to respond in an effective manner. And it was also ordered that cooperation and compliane reporting was there.

This was not a final ruling of contractor wrongdoing or a court approval of one-sided mining. The ISA said its inquiry was still live and the orders did not constitute a prejudgment about the merits. It is an intergovernmental body that acts autonomously of the United Nations.

Uncomfortable for both sides of the political aisle

Corporate access to Justice is a legitimate claim. You may not simply describe an opaque investigation as intimidation. But procedural rights as a tool of neutralization should not be waived while a business group is in the process of implementing an alternative approval scheme.

On the other hand, ISA cannot defend collective stewardship that are not solidified under unclear procedures. When institutions of governance, such as regulators, do not justify their questions in appropriate detail there are two results: First, politicians use the corresponding weakness to sue a regulator and secondly public confidence in its decisions declines.

Four strategic changes are urgent.

First, the ISA should put on a structured compliance guide: response conduct triggers and related standards, disclosure principles, response intervals and rationale decision-making requirements. Real confidentiality must be justified as narrowly as possible.

Secondly, contractors must ensure acknowledgement of any corporate affiliation, combinations of obligations and data transfers/reporting plans across authorizers. Regulators should look at what affiliated entities do in reality.

Third, sponsoring states should show that they are providing independent monitoring with solid technical support and regular publication of results. Sponsorship must carry credible supervision.

Fourth we propose that governments back a precautionary pause on commercial extraction until credible environmental limits that can be monitored, financial assurance and equitable benefit-sharing schemes are in place. Even if demand exists, the evidence that extraction is governable cannot be replaced by mineral demand.

The future of the ocean cannot rely on which jurisdiction approves things fastest. Similarly, international regulation cannot require compliance without providing transparency as to process.

The sustainable response is impartial rigorous. Humanity shares the seabed, and must create institutions capable of investigating corporate power but proven against judicial review.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia