How and by whom are marine natural resources regulated? Briefly discuss the history of regulation and include in your answer the role of the United Nations

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In response to new technology that facilitated mining the ocean floor, the first United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, held in 1958 in Geneva, Switzerland, established that prospecting and mining of minerals on the continental shelf was under the control of the country that owned the nearest land. Because the continental shelf is the portion of the sea floor extending from the coastline to where the slope markedly increases, the seaward limit of the shelf is subject to interpretation. Unfortunately, the continental shelf was not well defined in the treaty, which led to disputes. In 1960, the second United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea was also held in Geneva, but it made little progress toward an unambiguous and fair treaty concerning ownership of the coastal ocean.
Private exploitation of sea floor resources may proceed under the regulation of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), within which a mining company will be strictly controlled by the United Nations. This provision required mining companies to fund two mining operations—their own and one operated by the regulatory United Nations. As discussed above, some industrialized nations still oppose this portion of the law even though it was modified by an agreement to the convention in 1994 that eliminated some of the restrictive regulatory components. The ISA also grants 15-year exploration rights for countries to mine sea floor mineral resources.