On 31 March 2025 Portugal published Law 36/2025 (Diário da República n.º 63/2025, Série I de 2025-03-31) which seeks to establishes a moratorium on deep-sea mining in the maritime zones of Portugal until 2050 (Art 1). This is principally done through the addition of Article 11-A to Law 17/2014 (Diário da República n.º 71/2014, Série I de 2014-04-10), which concerns Portugal’s marine spatial planning and management:
Article 11-A
Law 36/2025, Article 3 (machine translation)
Moratorium
A moratorium on ocean floor mining in the national maritime space is hereby established, covering prospecting and exploration activities, until 1 January 2050
Of note, the external objectives of Portugal’s framework climate policy, as found in Article 15 of Law No. 98/2021 (Diário da República n.º 253/2021, Série I de 2021-12-31), is also amended with the addition of:
Article 15.
Law 36/2025, Article 4 (machine translation)
Climate foreign policy
1 – The Government adopts a global and integrated vision of the pursuit of climate objectives, respecting the limits of sustainable use of the planet’s natural resources and the development paths of each country, actively defending, in terms of foreign policy within the framework of climate diplomacy:
[…]
(g) The establishment of an international moratorium on deep-sea mining, as long as this is justified by the precautionary principle.
De Maribus 