Suing Norway to Keep the Arctic Seabed Closed

In January 2024 Norway became the first country to open its continental shelf to commercial deep-sea mining, designating roughly 281,000 square kilometres of Arctic seabed — an area larger than the United Kingdom — on the strength of an impact assessment that its own environment agency had criticised. WWF-Norway sued the government, arguing the assessment omitted data and failed the legal requirement to understand the environment before opening it, and the case was heard in Oslo District Court from November 2024. The litigation ran alongside political pressure: the first licensing round, planned for 2025, was dropped during budget negotiations with the Socialist Left Party, and in December 2025 the Labour government confirmed no deep-sea mining licences would be issued for the rest of the parliamentary term, to 2029. The Saami Council and the European Parliament had both opposed the plans, and the reversal removed what would have been the world's first national deep-sea mining regime.