This paper seeks to investigate the regulatory framework of deep seabed mining under the UNCLOS convention with special regard to it as a common property regime. The seabed, categorized as “common heritage of all mankind,” cannot be appropriated by any private or juridical person, yet “the authority” established by the convention grant mining rights to applicants. While individual companies can thus acquire private property rights to the minerals, UNCLOS has stipulated but not yet determined that profits are to some extend to be shared with the whole of mankind, especially developing nations. This paper will investigate firstly to what extend the regulations for deep sea mining conforms to a common ownership conception and which problems result from that and secondly whether its regulations and the problems can give us valuable theoretical and practical insight when thinking about other common property regimes.
