For almost 30 years, much of what went on at the secretive-sounding International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica was unreported and scarcely noticed. Whatever was said by delegations from its 168 member countries in its cavernous assembly hall – all mustard chairs, in-ear live interpreters, UN-style country place cards and views out to the Caribbean Sea – was seemingly of interest to only a smattering of environmental NGO types and a handful of representatives from vague-sounding international businesses.
Over the past 18 months, however, more attention has been turning towards the negotiations taking place inside the ISA’s brutalist HQ on the Kingston coast, where the authority has, since 1994, been tasked with deciding if and how mining the deep sea for metals and minerals – once the preserve of science fiction, now edging ever closer to reality – might start to take place n in international waters on the ocean floor.
