Faced with US President Donald Trump’s unilateral plan to extract metal-rich pebbles from the bottom of the Pacific, world leaders advocated adopting common rules to preserve deep-sea ecosystems at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice on Monday 9 June.
“The abyss is not for sale, any more than Greenland, Antarctica or the high seas”, declared French President Emmanuel Macron at the opening of the conference, which will bring together more than 60 heads of state or government...