PIL.OT / DEVELOPMENT
PIL.OTv0.62.2
Nicolò Andreotti’s article, published in ICSID Review, compares contracts of the International Seabed Authority for deep-seabed mining in the Area beyond national jurisdiction with traditional mining investment contracts. The ISA was created under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to regulate mineral resources in the Area.
The analysis examines the structures of the two contractual regimes, the parties’ rights and obligations, and their dispute-settlement mechanisms. It finds significant functional parallels between the regimes and argues that examining them together enables mutual cross-fertilization: investment-contract practice can inform the development of the ISA’s exploitation regime, while the ISA’s public-trusteeship model offers lessons for embedding environmental and intergenerational considerations into mining contracts on land and at sea.
How the legal character and dispute-settlement mechanisms of International Seabed Authority contracts in the Area beyond national jurisdiction compare with those of mining investment agreements
The article preserves the distinction between ISA contracts and investment agreements involving a sovereign host State while identifying functional parallels and scope for mutual cross-fertilization. Its contribution is to show how investment-contract practice may inform the ISA’s exploitation regime, and how the ISA’s public-trusteeship model may offer lessons for incorporating environmental and intergenerational considerations into mining contracts on land and at sea.
ICSID Review · 2026
DOI 10.1093/icsidreview/siag010