Regulatory activism from ISA would stifle innovation and entrepreneurship

As if this weren’t a broad enough agenda for U.N. regulators, the ISA sees an opportunity to do more. In 2004 it proclaimed:

The Authority represents a unique experiment in international relations. It is the only international body with the responsibility of administering a global commons for the benefit of mankind. As a global body with an institutional structure and finely balanced decision-making mechanism that safeguards the interests of all States, the Authority is well equipped to deal with new developments relating to the deep ocean and to play a more meaningful role in the international system of ocean governance.²³

The U.N.’s Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea boldly announced that the LOST “is not...a static instrument, but rather a dynamic and evolving body of law that must be vigorously safeguarded and its implementation aggressively advanced.”²⁴

Such regulatory activism would inhibit entrepreneurship. Investors seek legal stability and flee political uncertainty. A secure economic environment would be particularly important for entrepreneurs entering high-risk investment fields, notably underwater and in space, where the viability of the very process, let alone the security of the expected profit, would be in doubt. And with entrepreneurship in jeopardy, the future of the world’s poor would also be at risk, as the economic development that could allow them to exit poverty is eroded.