Question

The two texts below discuss the evolution and implementation of international deep-sea resource regulations.

Passage A
In 1967, Maltese ambassador Arvid Pardo delivered a watershed address to the United Nations, arguing that the seabed beyond national jurisdiction should be formally declared the "Common Heritage of Mankind" (CHM). This doctrine arose from a pressing geopolitical realization: as novel deep-submergence technologies for the first time rendered the ocean floor physically accessible to industrial apparatuses, the prevailing legal framework of mare liberum—which traditionally treated the high seas as a global commons open to unfettered, first-come, first-served exploitation—threatened to precipitate an unregulated neo-colonial land grab. To preempt this scenario, the CHM principle established that deep-sea resources belong collectively to humanity as a whole. Crucially, the doctrine was not merely a philosophical abstraction; it contained a concrete functional mandate requiring the equitable sharing of any economic benefits derived from deep-sea mining. Pardo explicitly envisioned a redistributive international system that would channel extraction royalties and technological assistance directly to developing nations lacking advanced maritime capabilities, thereby utilizing the seabed to close the global economic divide rather than exacerbate it. Furthermore, the CHM framework strictly mandated the exclusively peaceful use of the seabed and the rigorous preservation of the marine biological environment, reflecting a broader post-war imperative to permanently insulate the deep ocean from both industrial devastation and Cold War militarization.

Passage B
While the formal integration of the "Common Heritage of Mankind" principle into the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) represented a triumph of international cooperative idealism, its contemporary application via the International Seabed Authority (ISA) reveals profound structural and regulatory vulnerabilities. The foundational premise of the ISA—that it would centrally manage deep-sea mining to prevent a monopolistic resource rush by industrialized powers—has been heavily undermined by the exorbitant capital requirements of modern benthic extraction. Because the highly specialized technological infrastructure required to harvest polymetallic nodules is prohibitively expensive, only a handful of heavily capitalized, state-sponsored conglomerates possess the capacity to effectively participate in the industry. Consequently, while the ISA's charter explicitly retains the redistributive mechanism designed to allocate a portion of mining revenues to technologically disadvantaged developing states, the actual royalty rates currently being negotiated by state actors are so nominal that the promised collective financial windfall is practically negligible. Moreover, the stringent environmental directives embedded in the original CHM framework have been steadily diluted by recent "adaptive management" protocols, which controversially prioritize experimental extraction over absolute ecological preservation. Thus, although UNCLOS successfully abolished the archaic open-access maritime doctrines that would have otherwise governed the seafloor without restriction, its current bureaucratic iteration operates less as a steward of collective human wealth and more as a sophisticated licensing agency that legitimizes the very industrialized hegemony it was originally conceptualized to constrain.

Based on the texts provided, which one of the following specific details regarding deep-ocean regulation is explicitly affirmed by the authors of both Passage A and Passage B?