Concept of Common Heritage of Mankind‖ Relating to the Resources of International Sea-bed Area

Imagine a gold mine under a public park, with no owner. If any company with a big enough dredger could dig it out, the rich countries would take the gold and the rest would get nothing. Suppose instead the law said the mine belongs to everybody, and whoever digs must share the profit. That is the idea behind the common heritage of mankind. It was proposed in 1967 for the deep seabed, which lies beyond every country's coast and holds metal-rich nodules, and it became the core of Part XI of the Law of the Sea Convention. This topic explains what the concept means, where it comes from and how it differs from a simple open sea.

In two minutes

The common heritage of mankind is the principle that the international seabed Area and its mineral resources belong to all mankind, cannot be appropriated by any State, must be managed through an international authority and used for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of all, with special regard to developing States.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Public International Law on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.