What If Arvid Pardo Had Not Made his Famous Speech?

Abstract

This chapter explores whether and what might have changed had one famous speech not been made. The speech in question was Arvid Pardo’s November 1967 address to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly. Through the lens of tracking Pardo’s contribution which is both over- and understated in the literature, the chapter discusses why in the 1960s and after, states, international lawyers, and even civil society organisations became and have remained invested in the unlikely project of deep seabed mining. By retrieving the contingencies of the moment in which the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was drafted and its provisions and concepts given fixed associations, the chapter argues for radical readings that might be truer to that treaty’s constitutional promise.