The recent signing of the Strategic Framework for Critical Minerals Research and Supply Chain Security between the United States and the Cook Islands raises some questions around the integrity of the Cook Islands Government’s position on deep seabed mining. At the heart of the matter lies a profound contradiction between the Cook Islands Government’s official rhetoric and its recent diplomatic arrangements. For years, Prime Minister Mark Brown and the Seabed Minerals Authority have maintained a public posture of cautious neutrality, asserting that “no final decision has been made on whether to proceed with commercial deep-sea mining”. They insist that the nation is strictly in an exploration phase, dedicated to gathering environmental baseline data to allow for a decision, on whether to mine or not, to be made.
