ABSTRACT
The Pacific Islands region, also known as Oceania, is a vast oceanscape, generally accepted as covering the Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia sub-regions. The Pacific Islands region could easily be described as a ‘Blue Continent’: countries and territories made up of 800,000 square kilometres of land and around 30,569,000 square kilometres of exclusive economic zones. As a consequence, while a considerable amount of work has been accomplished to establish maritime boundaries and secure sovereignty and sovereign rights over such areas and their resources, there remains a degree of uncertainty today around the limits of areas under national jurisdiction in the Pacific Islands Region. Pursuant to article 7, parties must designate a national seabed mining authority, responsible for national seabed mining policy development and implementation, and identify which national agencies are responsible for issues such as mapping the seabed, delivering licences and environmental permits, collecting seabed mining taxes and royalties, managing public consultations and representing each party at the International Seabed Authority.
