US Executive Order Opens Up Deep Sea To Mining, Flouting International Law, Endangering Ocean Health
The U.S. government has issued an executive order enabling U.S. companies and subsidiaries to apply for licenses to mine the deep-sea in international waters under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resources Act, originally designed to regulate mining activities until the U.S. could formally adopt the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
In response to the order, leading ocean experts issued the following statements:
Dr. Douglas McCauley, a professor at UC Santa Barbara and adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said:
'This executive order is a great gift to China's economy. Up until today, most countries have been sitting around the same table in the International Seabed Authority, carefully negotiating binding mining regulations to ensure the equitable sharing of benefits from resources mined in international waters. The U.S. is attempting to subvert that controlled process.
"The US has stepped forward to become the first pirate mining operation in international waters. With rules, we could have controlled the minerals that China or any country or person would take from this part of the ocean. But without any rules, China, simply put, will be far better at winning.
"For example, these metals at the bottom of the ocean were recently discovered to be radioactive. It is difficult to imagine any community in the US that would want a mountain of these radioactive metals processed in their backyard. Other countries may be less squeamish about such things.
"The grand irony is that we just unleashed a gold rush - but a gold rush for fool's gold. In our fever to get at these ocean minerals - the US seems to have neglected to run the numbers. The cobalt and nickel that could be mined from the ocean floor would be the most expensive cobalt and nickel mined anywhere on the planet. We just committed US taxpayers to something akin to the $400 military hammer scandal. Cobalt and nickel are in oversupply today and can be bought with a click on international metal markets at a fraction of the cost. The US just signed on the dotted line for a very bad economic deal.'
Duncan Currie, legal and policy advisor, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, said:
'The decision by the United States to unilaterally pursue deep-sea mining is a breach of international law with dire consequences for every country and person who benefits from the ocean as our common heritage. It upends more than 40 years of legal precedent in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, threatens to destabilize ocean governance globally and is an insult to the peoples and countries across the Pacific that this move will most impact.'
Victor Vescovo, founder and CEO, Caladan Capital, and retired naval officer, industrial investor and undersea explorer, said:
'Deep Sea Mining is an untried, technically difficult, very expensive, and financially risky experiment to secure only two scarce metals available from seafloor mining, nickel and cobalt, that are no longer essential for making electric vehicle batteries. These two metals can also be secured for national security by other, more reliable and cheaper means, or stockpiling. As for Rare Earth Metals or lithium, neither are available in meaningful quantities from seafloor mining. Pursuit of commercial Deep Sea Mining has a very great probability of becoming the Republican Party's version of the Solyndra embarrassment.'
Bobbi-Jo Dobush, ocean conservation policy expert and author of 'Deep Sea Mining Isn't Worth the Risk,' said:
'Deep-sea mining is fundamentally an unproven and high-risk endeavor, beset by significant technical, financial and regulatory uncertainties that carry substantial risk for investors. The Metals Company is promising certainty where none exists.'
The experts above are available to discuss why:
A rush to mine the deep sea would create economic hardship and geopolitical harm for the U.S. without apparent gains.
Experts project deep-seabed mining to be economic folly – generating some of the most expensive cobalt and nickel ever mined on the planet.
U.S. action would likely trigger a 'fool's gold' rush to mine the deep sea from competitors such as Russia and China, causing irreparable harm to vulnerable marine ecosystems and ocean health.
The release of toxic materials associated with mining represents a risk to public health globally through seafood contamination.
Deep-sea mining poses immense risks to marine habitats and ocean biodiversity.
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NZ Herald
4 days ago
- NZ Herald
Study may undercut idea that cash payments to poor families help with child development
They were no more likely to develop language skills, avoid behavioural problems or developmental delays, demonstrate executive function, or exhibit brain activity associated with cognitive development. 'I was very surprised — we were all very surprised,' said Greg Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, and one of six researchers who led the study, called Baby's First Years. 'The money did not make a difference.' The findings could weaken the case for turning the United States child tax credit into an income guarantee, as Democrats did briefly four years ago in a pandemic-era effort to fight child poverty. That effort, in 2021, provided most families with children monthly cheques of up to US$300 per child and helped push child poverty to a record low, though it did not receive the kind of rigorous evaluation of its developmental impacts the new study offers. It lapsed after a year, and Democratic efforts to extend it failed amid unified Republican opposition. Many Democrats are pushing to bring it back. While the new research may shape the debate over income guarantees, the leaders of the new study disagree among themselves about the relevance of the experiment's results. Some think the pandemic, which erupted soon after the research began, may have skewed outcomes, both because it disrupted lives and triggered large government aid programmes that diluted the impact of the stipends provided by the study. The payments from Baby's First Years were also much smaller, on a per-family basis, than those the Democrats propose. Larger payments might have beneficial effects. Since the test was unusual in targeting children in their earliest years, it is also possible that benefits will appear later, after they start school. Still, the test was unusually comprehensive, and the lack of results provides conservative critics of cash guarantees an empirical talking point. 'It shows that money alone won't lead to better outcomes for children,' said Robert Doar, president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who supports imposing work rules on aid on the theory that working parents offer children role models. The study did not test non-cash programmes such as food stamps or Medicaid, or subsidies tied to work. The results were reported earlier by NPR. It has long been clear that children from affluent families exhibit stronger cognitive development and fewer behavioural problems, on average, than their low-income counterparts. The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces including parental health and education, neighbourhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home. A landmark study in 2019 from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine found that 'poverty itself causes negative child outcomes' and aid programmes often help. Most of the evidence came from studies of non-cash benefits, such as food stamps or Medicaid, or the earned-income tax credit, a subsidy for parents with jobs. Some of the studies were decades old, when the safety net was smaller and expansions might have had larger effects. For a more precise test of cash guarantees, Baby's First Years raised about US$22 million from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations and recruited 1000 poor mothers with newborns in New York, New Orleans, greater Omaha, Nebraska, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. More than 80% were black or Latino, and most were unmarried. After randomly dividing the parents, researchers gave one group $333 a month while the other got a nominal $20. Random-control testing is considered an especially rigorous form of evaluation. The researchers specified in advance seven measures on which they thought children in high-cash families would outperform the others. After four years they found no group differences on any of the yardsticks, which aimed for a comprehensive look at child development. Children in the families getting the higher cash payments did no better on tests of vocabulary, executive function, preliteracy skills or spatial perception. Their mothers did not rank them more highly on assessments of social and emotional behaviour. And they were no more likely than the children in the low-cash group to avoid chronic health conditions including asthma. Mothers in the high-cash group did spend about 5% more time on learning and enrichment activities, such as reading or playing with their children. They also spent about $68 a month more than the low-cash mothers on child-related goods, including toys, books, and clothing. At the same time, the study found no support for two main criticisms of unconditional payments. While critics have warned that parents might abuse the money, high-cash mothers spent negligible sums on alcohol and no more than low-cash mothers, according to self-reporting. They spent less on cigarettes. Nor did they work less. While opponents say income guarantees could erode the work ethic, mothers in the two groups showed no differences across four years in hours worked, wages earned or the likelihood of having jobs. The high-cash mothers did prove less likely to work fulltime during the pandemic, which researchers considered positive — evidence that aid helps parents manage emergencies. One puzzling outcome is that the payments failed to reduce mothers' stress, as researchers predicted. On the contrary, mothers in the high-cash group reported higher levels of anxiety than their low-cash counterparts. It is possible they felt more pressure to excel as parents. Contrary to predictions by researchers, children in both groups showed similar patterns of brain activity on the study's main neurological yardstick, an index of high-frequency brain activity, as measured by an electroencephalogram. High-frequency brain activity is often associated with cognitive development. Though an earlier paper showed promising activity on a related neurological measure in the high-cash infants, that trend did not endure. The new study detected 'some evidence' of other differences in neurological activity between the two groups of children, but its significance was unclear. While researchers publicised the earlier, more promising results, the follow-up study was released quietly and has received little attention. Several co-authors declined to comment on the results, saying that it was unclear why the payments had no effect and that the pattern could change as the children age. 'Anyone who tries to tell you they know what the data mean is just speculating,' Katherine Magnuson, a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in an email. The payments continued for more than six years, and future analyses will examine the longer-range effect. Arloc Sherman of the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, a supporter of income guarantees, said the results were affected by the pandemic and should be weighed against conflicting evidence. 'I don't think these results undermine the conclusion, from a large volume of studies, that income is important for children's health, education, and development,' he said. Jane Waldfogel, a professor at Columbia University whose book Child Benefits: The Smart Investment for America's Future supports child-rearing subsidies, said the experimental payments were too small to have the predicted effect. Because the aid was capped at $333 per family, not per child, she said, households received an average subsidy less than half of what Democrats offered in 2021 and typically propose. 'It just wasn't enough to reduce financial hardship and strain,' Waldfogel said. The payments initially increased household income by 18%, but high inflation eroded their value. Virtually all parents in both groups remained low-income throughout the four years, and they reported similar levels of hardships including evictions or utility cutoffs. Robert Rector, an opponent of income guarantees at the Heritage Foundation, praised the rigour of the study and said it 'blows the arguments for unconditional cash aid out of the water'. The results are unsurprising, he said, because the safety net already provides what he called large food, healthcare and wage subsidies, meaning few families face dire conditions and the extra stipends did little to differentiate the groups. While the aid did not boost child development in measurable ways, it may still have enriched family life. Some parents told researchers it let them buy children special gifts or share meaningful experiences, such as dining out or visiting a zoo. One proudly photographed the winter coat she bought her child. 'The mothers are certainly not saying this money doesn't matter,' said Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, who oversaw parent interviews. Michael R. Strain of the American Enterprise Institute said the study reinforced his doubts about cash aid, but he encouraged fellow conservatives not to make too much of it. 'It seems completely plausible to me that the pandemic overwhelmed an effect from the income,' he said. Still, he noted that poor families faced problems as varied as bad schools, violent neighbourhoods, and a shortage of role models. 'Can US$300 a month address that?' he said. 'I don't know why it would.' A single study may alter few minds, but it has changed one expert's thinking. Duncan, a leading child poverty researcher, had been convinced by studies of Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income tax credit that unconditional cash aid would improve children's outcomes. The uniform new results have made him reconsider. 'There is strong evidence that these other safety net programmes reduce intergenerational poverty,' Duncan said. 'Our cash payments appear unlikely to follow suit. We've got to come to grips with that.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Jason DeParle ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
NZ Herald
5 days ago
- NZ Herald
US prison officials get tips on how to modernise jails during trips to see how they are run abroad
'They treat their maximum-security prisoners like minimum-security prisoners,' Davison marvelled. And yet, Tegel Prison is far less violent than many American prisons. Over the course of a week, officials from Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Oklahoma toured four German prisons where inmates wore street clothes, maintained their right to vote, cooked their own meals, played in soccer leagues, and learned skills like animal husbandry and carpentry. One, called the Open Prison, allowed residents to come and go for work, school, and errands. A growing number of American states are looking abroad for ideas that can be adapted to their state prison systems, most often to Scandinavian countries famous for the IKEA-utopia design of their correctional institutions, but also to places like Germany and New Zealand. In the past two years, California, Arizona, and Oklahoma's prison systems have shifted their focus to rehabilitation rather than punishment. In 2022, Pennsylvania opened a unit known as Little Scandinavia, and last year Missouri began a similar transformation project in four prisons. Six other states have established European-style units for younger prisoners. The efforts are still small, dwarfed by the sheer size of the American prison population, and limited by political and financial roadblocks. Prison conditions are not a priority for voters, polls show, and changes are sometimes unwelcome. In March, thousands of corrections officers in New York state walked off the job to protest against new limitations on the use of solitary confinement, saying the changes would make their jobs more dangerous. In Arizona, a new head of prisons who had sought to make them more humane faced sharp criticism after a prisoner who had been moved out of maximum security killed three fellow inmates. And harsh punishments are part of the American DNA. US President Donald Trump has said he would 'love' to send American convicts to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Still, making prison life more like normal life is catching on in some surprising places. 'I'm amazed by how quickly these ideas are taking off across the US,' said Keramet Reiter, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine. Prisoner advocates say the changes make communities safer by better preparing prisoners for their eventual release and create a less stressful environment for prison workers. However, the real catalyst is that US prisons are in crisis, struggling with severe staffing shortages, crumbling facilities and frequent violence. A common room in a ward for Berlin's most dangerous prisoners at Tegel Prison. Photo / Lena Mucha, the New York Times Inmates in US prisons often endure extreme temperatures, vermin-infested food and years, or even decades, in solitary confinement. High-profile cases have brought attention to prolonged shackling, fatal beatings, and sexual abuse. 'It's unsustainable, which is why we have to change the justice system to lock up only those who are a danger to others,' said Tricia Everest, secretary of public safety for Republican-led Oklahoma. The state once had the country's highest incarceration rate. In 2016, voters approved measures to lower the penalties for some crimes and to direct the savings into mental health and substance abuse treatment. Everest has presided over the closure of four prisons. European prisons are far safer than those in the US, experts say, with lower recidivism rates and healthier, happier employees. In Berlin, which has 3.9 million residents and operates a correction system analogous to that of an American state, suicides are rare, and homicides are virtually non-existent. Of course, the US has higher crime than European countries. America's system of prisons and jails is the largest in the world, incarcerating nearly two million people, according to the World Prison Brief, which tracks global data on incarceration. Change on that scale is difficult to accomplish, especially when the American public can be sceptical of spending money on what they regard as prisoners' comfort. Even in states that have been noted for overhauling some aspects of their criminal justice system, like Georgia and Texas, prison conditions can remain abysmal. Georgia was singled out by the Justice Department last year for failing to protect inmates from 'frequent, pervasive violence', and in March a federal judge declared the heat in Texas prisons to be 'plainly unconstitutional'. By contrast, German prison officials say they consider loss of liberty to be punishment enough. The courts have ruled that new prisons must provide single-occupancy cells at least 10sqm in size. Many have kitchens where residents may cook their own meals. One prison for young adults is experimenting with removing bars from some of the windows, on the premise that looking at bars is depressing. Many of the rules were made in response to the shame of the country's Nazi past, when prisons were used to suppress dissent and concentration camps held unspeakable horrors. 'What it all boils down to is the core principle, human dignity,' said Deputy Warden Johanna Schmid as she led the group through Tegel Prison's leafy courtyards. At Heidering Prison, warden Andreas Kratz showed off a visiting room with a kitchenette, bed, crib and balcony. Colby Braun, head of prisons for North Dakota, and Tricia Everest, the secretary of public safety for Oklahoma, view a work area at Heidering Prison, in Grossbeeren, Germany. Photo / Lena Mucha, the New York Times Time with family, German officials said, helps prisoners maintain the ties they will need to stay out of trouble when they are released. In the US, privacy, time outside of cells and family visits are considered risky, and 'overfamiliarity' between correction officers and inmates is prohibited. German prisons take the opposite approach, known as dynamic security. Correction officers are expected to develop relationships with inmates and know when problems may arise. Yvonne Gade, a correction officer in a ward that houses a small number of prisoners deemed particularly dangerous, shrugged off concerns about their access to a gym with free weights. 'It would be a huge potential for violence if you locked them up all the time,' she said. Prisons in Europe are certainly not perfect. The Americans and Germans shared frustrations over gangs and a recent influx of synthetic marijuana. Some of Germany's problems show just how different the system is. In one facility for young adults, a resident set his curtain on fire using a lighter he was permitted to have. In Saxony-Anhalt in April, a prisoner was accused of killing his wife during a five-hour, unsupervised conjugal visit. The idea of showing US policymakers how European prisons work originated with a civil rights lawyer named Don Specter, whose lawsuits have led to changes to the California prison system. In 2011, he accompanied a group of students on a visit to prisons in Germany and Scandinavia and was struck by how it changed the 'hearts and minds' of people with diverse political views. 'It seemed that the magic sauce was actually seeing it in person,' Specter said. When Specter was awarded a large fee in one of his cases, he used it to fund a trip abroad for prison officials in 2013. Out of that grew the Global Justice Exchange Project at the Vera Institute of Justice, which organises regular trips to Germany, and a programme at the University of California, San Francisco called Amend, which has worked with Washington, Oregon, California and other states to change prison culture. Working with Vera, six states have gone on to create special units for 18- to 25-year-olds that allow more frequent visits with family, shared responsibility for resolving conflicts and more out-of-cell time. The effect of these transformations is difficult to measure, in part because many of the units are quite new and in part because doing research in prison is inherently complex. However, a randomised, controlled trial in South Carolina showed that residents who were placed in the special units were 73% less likely to be disciplined for violence and 83% less likely to be sent to restrictive housing. An inmate works with a pony on a small farm at the Neustrelitz Prison in Neustrelitz, Germany. Photo / Lena Mucha, the New York Times Such efforts can also improve staff morale. Guards whose interactions with prisoners go beyond shackling and unshackling them are likely to consider their work more meaningful, said Reiter, the criminology professor. Throughout the German tour, US officials were intrigued but also wrestled with how much of what they saw would work at home. The biggest obstacle was cost, especially increasing staff-to-inmate ratios when states are already struggling to recruit officers. But even simple acts like a guard and inmate sharing a cup of coffee could require an overhaul of long-standing policies designed to prohibit fraternisation. Differing concepts of liability also get in the way. In Germany, prisoners can use the toilet behind a closed door, while in the US toilets are typically installed in open cells, said Colby Braun, director of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. 'You live in your bathroom,' he said. 'With another person.' When the state was planning a new prison, designers tried for a more dignified arrangement but could not achieve it, Braun said, because of a requirement that officers be able to see prisoners on their rounds. The officials compared notes on how to overcome political resistance in their own states. Braun said he tried to develop relationships with lawmakers so he could fend off proposals he viewed as counterproductive, like a recent one that would have ended the use of rehabilitation programmes and halfway houses. On the other hand, members of the Massachusetts delegation were frustrated because, they said, its liberal legislature did not want to replace their prisons, some of which are more than 100 years old, even though new ones could make incarceration more humane. For her part, Everest said she had learned how to speak the language of her state's legislators and law enforcement officers. 'I don't do criminal justice reform. It's been politicised,' she said. 'We are modernising the system.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Shaila Dewan Photographs by: Lena Mucha ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
RNZ News
25-07-2025
- RNZ News
ISA launches inquiry into The Metals Company
The International Seabed Authority Council has launched an inquiry into noncompliance by deep sea mining front runner The Metals Company. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
