Kingston, Jamaica - As the International Seabed Authority (ISA) enters its second week of sessions, Greenpeace International emphasised that Saturday's provisional measures decision by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) explicitly refused to suspend the ongoing inquiry into potential non-compliance by The Metals Company's (TMC) subsidiaries.[1][2]
Louisa Casson, Campaigner, Greenpeace International, said: "This entire litigation has been an egregious waste of time and money, forcing a public regulator to defend an ongoing inquiry, which can now move forward. This lawsuit is a textbook distraction tactic designed to delay consequences and divert public attention away from what is undeniable: The Metals Company's plans to start unilateral deep sea mining would violate international law.
"Governments cannot sit back and watch this corporate bullying play out; they have a political responsibility to defend the deep ocean from rogue corporations. If the inquiry confirms that TMC's subsidiaries are breaching their contracts, governments must send the strongest possible signal that complicity in unlawful deep sea mining will not be tolerated. It would be untenable for companies involved in unlawful activity to retain internationally legitimate rights to the international seabed."
The Facts Behind The ITLOS Procedural Ruling:
The inquiry continues: The Chamber did not block the ISA from investigating possible non-compliance by Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI) and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd (TOML), two wholly-owned subsidiaries of The Metals Company that hold exploration contracts with the ISA; it focused on how the inquiry will be conducted. The inquiry can now continue, with the Chamber directing the ISA to ensure due process is followed.[3]
The merits case is untouched: This ruling was purely about temporary provisional measures while the case is being fully examined. The Chamber has not decided whether the ISA actually violated any rights; it only determined that the ISA should follow due process and should clarify the inquiry procedure so that NORI and TOML provide further information to the investigation.
No orders to extend the contract: The Chamber clarified that the compliance inquiry and the decisions the ISA Council makes on contract extension are two entirely separate tracks.
Next deadline set: Both NORI and the ISA must report back to the Chamber by 31 August 2026 to demonstrate compliance with the provisional measures.
Louisa Casson added: "This corporate group has made it glaringly obvious that it is willing to bypass international law. But no amount of corporate spin can hide the fact that TMC's subsidiaries failed to kill the investigation into their conduct. The political responsibility now falls squarely on governments to step up their game to fend off a corporate group that deploys strategic litigation to evade scrutiny and uses unscrupulous PR that compares deep ocean habitats to golf balls. States must take immediate responsibility and act against any company or national connected to unilateral mining to disrupt and limit unlawful deep sea mining supply chains. At the ISA, governments must enact a moratorium to protect our oceans and multilateralism from this threat."
In July 2025, governments of the ISA Council unanimously decided to investigate potential contractual breaches in light of another TMC 100%-owned subsidiary's highly controversial applications to gain unilateral permission for deep sea mining from the Trump administration, including in the same areas where Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI) and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd (TOML) hold ISA exploration contracts. At the March 2026 meeting, the ISA Council called for the inquiry to include publicly available information. Through these ITLOS legal proceedings, NORI and TOML have identified themselves as "requiring specific attention to possible non‑compliance" in the inquiry process.[4][5]
Multiple legal experts argue that States Parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) have both an opportunity and an obligation to take action against companies and nationals under their control to prevent their participation in unilateral, unlawful deep sea mining.[6]
