#46: Conflicting Regimes with Coalter Lathrop

Coalter Lathrop returns ten months after Episode 21, and the DSHMRA application story has grown significantly messier. Five applications are now public on NOAA’s site — four companies, two of which are subsidiaries of American Metal Incorporated, an entity that didn’t exist until January 2025, with one applicant incorporating as recently as August 2025. His read on the motivation ranges from holding licenses as a future bargaining chip if the US eventually joins UNCLOS, to outright stock pumping by finance-world actors betting on a land-rush narrative. The more consequential development is the first genuine spatial conflict in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone between two separate corporate interests — SeaX, an American Metal subsidiary, filing over areas already reserved for Impossible Metals Bahrain under the ISA. That’s a different problem than TMC’s intra-subsidiary overlap, and it puts Article 139’s obligation-to-ensure clause directly in the spotlight. Coalter has mapped at least 17 states parties — including Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, Nauru, and Tonga — whose nationals appear in these five DSHMRA applications as applicants, contractors, or named technical partners. With the UK already having enacted domestic legislation tying unlawful seabed activity to money laundering law, and parliamentarians in the Netherlands and Switzerland actively raising the issue, Coalter argues the question is shifting from whether these states have an obligation to act — to which one moves first. Follow Coalter LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/coalter-lathrop Chapters 00:00:47 — Coalter’s Work Over the Past 10 Months 00:08:02 — The New DSHMRA Applications: Who Is Applying and Why? 00:17:13 — The First Direct Corporate Conflict: CX and Impossible Metals Bahrain 00:30:38 — The Original Purpose of the ISA 00:31:33 — The 171 Countries and the Obligation to Ensure 00:38:51 — 17 Countries With Nationals in the Dishma Applications 00:44:44 — How the UK Has Approached Its Treaty Obligations 00:45:01 — ALLSEAS: The Linchpin Company at the Center of It All 00:51:55 — Nori and Toml Bring Cases Against the ISA 00:57:46 — The Car Metaphor: Dispute Settlement Gets Its First Test 01:05:08 — What a Realistic Path Forward Could Look Like 01:08:28 — Kingston Roundtable, July 20th Legal/Regulatory References: • DSHMRA (Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act) — congress.gov search: “Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act” • NOAA Dishma Applications (public): fisheries.noaa.gov — search “deep seabed hard mineral” • UNCLOS Article 139 — Obligation to Ensure: un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements • ISA (International Seabed Authority): isa.int • Seabed Disputes Chamber 2011 Advisory Opinion: itlos.org — search “Responsibilities and Obligations of States” • The Metals Company (TMC): metals.co • ALLSEAS: allseas.com • Impossible Metals: impossiblemetals.com Event: • Coalter’s ISA Kingston Roundtable — Monday, July 20th, ISA Council Week 2, Kingston, Jamaica (targeting state delegations; topic: Article 139 obligation to ensure) Previous Appearance: #21: Coalter Lathrop on Risks to International Stability Link-    • #21: Coalter Lathrop on Risks to Internati...