Allegations of possible payments to secure votes. Allegations of misuse of funds by top diplomats. A potential job offer to tempt a candidate out of a race.
These are not the antics of a corrupt election in an unstable country. Rather, these are efforts in the seemingly polite salons of a United Nations-affiliated agency to influence decisions related to the initiation of seabed mining for metals used in electric vehicles.
It’s all part of an ugly battle over who will be the next leader of the International Seabed Authority, which controls mining in international waters worldwide.
The fraud charges underscore the controversial nature of the agency’s upcoming agenda and the billions of dollars at stake. Some countries strongly oppose the idea of ​​mining the world’s deepest waters, while others see it as a much-needed economic opportunity. Whoever occupies the top position of the organization in the coming years will have significant influence on these decisions.
Michael Lodge, secretary-general of the International Deep Sea Authority since 2016, is urging diplomats from the organization’s 168 member states to elect him to a third four-year term. From there, he hopes to help the agency finalize environmental rules as it prepares to accept its first application, perhaps as early as this fall, to begin industrial-scale mining in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico.
His opponent, Leticia Carvalho, is an oceanographer and former oil industry regulator from Brazil. He has called for a more deliberative approach, arguing that several years of work are likely to be left before the rules are written. Its position is that no mining applications should be approved until this process is complete.
Amid this already intense campaign, a former senior official of the Seabed Authority filed a complaint with the United Nations in May, accusing Mr. Lodge and his top deputy of misappropriating funds.
Supporters of the two candidates have each accused the other side of trying to influence the outcome of the election by offering to pay for delegates’ travel expenses or to pay delegations’ late fees. Countries in arrears are generally barred from voting, and 38 nations were behind on payments as of May.
Each nation pays a different amount – depending on the size of the economy – up to $1.8 million this year for China or $831 for Rwanda, with the money used to support the agency’s annual budget.
Adding to the intrigue, the ambassador of Kiribati, a small Pacific island nation that supports Mr Lodge’s candidacy, tried late last month to persuade Ms Carvalho to drop out of the race in exchange for a possible high-level staff post at the Beginning of the Bottom.
If this sneaky move had worked, it would have left Mr. Lodge unconcerned. Mr. Lodge did not respond to written questions to his office about that effort. But in a six-page statement to The Times, Mr. Lodge and his office disputed any suggestion that he had misused agency funds or otherwise tried to improperly influence the election.
“You have a collection of vague, baseless, baseless and anonymous rumours, gossip and hearsay that are demonstrably untrue, lack any basis in fact or evidence and do not stand up to any objective scrutiny,” Mr Lodge said in the statement, adding that he and Principle of Vythos “follow the strictest standards of international good governance and management”.
The attempt to bait Ms Carvalho into leaving the school sparked an angry response from her and the Brazilian delegation. “We have a great candidate who has already received a lot of support and we will win this election,” said Bruno Imparato, a Brazilian diplomat who is helping organize Ms. Carvalho’s campaign.
Teburoro Tito, the Kiribati ambassador who urged Ms. Carvalho to drop out of the race, confirmed the job offer in an interview with The New York Times. He added that Mr. Lodge had signed the proposed agreement as part of a strategy to secure Mr. Lodge’s re-election at the next meeting of the Subsea Authority in late July and early August at its headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica.
“We don’t want someone to come in and break what the ISA is trying to do,” Mr. Tito said in an interview, recalling what he told Ms. Carvalho. “I come from an island. We always believe in reconciliation. We don’t want many disputes in the village.”
Mr Lodge, in his statement, said he was “not aware of the discussions referred to and they are not part of the purported proposal”. The agency said all vacancies were advertised through official channels and subject to competitive recruitment.
The Seabed Authority is governed by the 168 member states that have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, declaring that all ocean floor minerals in international waters are “the common heritage of mankind” and that access is exclusively governed from the Beginning of the Bottom of the Sea.
In the decades since, the Seabed Authority has approved 31 exploration contracts allowing for mapping and other preparatory work in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Now the agency is preparing to consider applications for industrial-scale mining, carried out by bulldozer-like machines that plunge to the ocean floor miles below the surface.
While some countries are keen to move forward, at least 25 have proposed a moratorium or “precautionary pause”, arguing that there is not enough data to ensure that mining will not cause harm.
China has the most of these conventions — five in total. However, exploratory contracts are distributed among many countries, including Russia, Poland, India, France, Germany, Japan, and many Pacific Islands. The United States has never ratified the treaty, but is participating in the debate.
Member states can do the exploration work themselves or hire contractors like The Metals Company, a Nasdaq-based mining company based in Canada that wants to start extracting millions of tons of metal-bearing nodules from the bottom of its Pacific Ocean in 2026.
The company estimates that just one of its contract areas — a 46,000-square-mile section in the Pacific — will net $31 billion in profits over 25 years of mining. The company claims that its contract areas contain enough nickel, cobalt and manganese to meet all of the automotive battery metal needs in the United States.
“The planet’s resources are created for humanity,” Mr. Tito said, explaining his opposition to the proposed moratorium.
Metals Company has relied on Mr. Lodge to pressure Seabed Authority member states to finalize regulations. There is some urgency, as the company had only $6.8 million in cash as of the end of last year — a small percentage of the capital it will need to conduct mining, as some investors have held back while the company waits for the green light. .
Gerard Barron, the company’s chief executive, said he did not play a role in lobbying for Mr Lodge’s re-election, knowing it would draw criticism from environmentalists. “This kind of move could fail so massively,” Mr. Barron said in an interview.
But Kiribati is one of three tiny Pacific island nations – the others being Nauru and Tonga – with which The Metals Company has struck deals to secure mining access to areas of the Pacific Ocean governed by its Authority Bottom of the Sea. So for Kiribati to help Mr Lodge secure a third term is a boon for The Metals Company.
Mr. Tito said he first met Mr. Lodge decades ago when, as a young lawyer living in Kiribati, Mr. Lodge helped represent Mr. Tito’s family when his sister died while giving birth to a baby after inappropriate sedation. Mr. Tito later became president of Kiribati, a nation of about 120,000 people, and now serves as its ambassador to the United Nations.
Mr Lodge, who is British, was nominated for his first two terms by Britain. But the government supports leaders for international organizations for only two terms, Mr. Tito said, explaining why Kiribati has nominated Mr. Lodge this time. The general secretary is paid about $213,000 a year.
Mr. Lodge has traveled since January to China, Cameroon, Japan, Egypt, Italy and the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, among other stops — visits that Mr. Lodge and his staff have described as educational missions, but which his critics consider inappropriate.
“He’s clearly campaigning — he’s using the Bottom Authority machine as part of his campaign,” Ms Carvalho said.
Mr. Lodge replied that traveling to the office is a necessary part of his job and unrelated to the election. He added that “as general secretary and as a candidate for election, Mr. Lodge condemns any attempt to influence the vote by paying for delegations to attend the meetings.”
The German government, which supports Ms Carvalho’s election, has announced plans to call for an investigation into what it considers questionable financial activities at the Seabed Authority, according to emails obtained by The Times.
In recent speeches, Mr. Lodge has mentioned the need for the Seabed Authority to complete its work on regulations. “It has taken many decades to get to where we are today, and there seems no longer any reason to deviate from the evolutionary approach,” Mr. Lodge said last month at the United Nations.
Allegations of misuse of Seabed Authority funds by Mr. Lodge and his top deputy, among others at the agency, came from a former human resources officer there. The complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, says Mr. Lodge has collected $67,000 in excessive reimbursements since 2016 related to housing and other expenses in Jamaica and New York.
The complaint was sent to the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services. However, he sent the complaint to the Seabed Authority, emails obtained by The Times show. This meant Mr Lodge was called upon to deal with allegations of misconduct.
In its response, the agency said it had robust and independent procedures to deal with staff complaints and complaints.
Ms Carvalho, who now works at the United Nations Environment Program as head of its marine division, said her supporters did not try to pay the fees of other delegations. He said he would have a different management style to Mr Lodge, who has faced accusations that he is too closely aligned with the mining industry and does not provide enough transparency into the operations of the Wells Authority.
Although Brazil has passed a 10-year moratorium on seabed mining, Ms Carvalho said she does not support that stance. But he added that if the Seabed Authority approves mining before its environmental standards are finalized, legal challenges will arise.
