Standard deposit agreement, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, with counsel's line-by-line note

Origin: The vault operator; publicly available
Dated: Current version, read May 2026
Extent: 6 pages
Status: accepted
Redactions: None.

Chain of custody

A public contract anybody may download. We paid a lawyer to read it line by line because the entire conspiracy about this building is a claim about control, and control is answered by reading clause 2.

Held by: Public; copy and counsel's note held by They Buried

Excerpt

CL. 2 · OWNERSHIP
  The Depositor retains ownership of the deposited material.
  The Operator shall not open, distribute, transfer or make available
  any deposited sample to any third party.

  [counsel's note: there is no clause permitting the Operator to refuse
   a withdrawal request from the Depositor. I have looked twice.]

Transcribed by the data desk. Line breaks follow the original. Bracketed matter is ours.

Editor's note

Six pages. The whole answer to 'who controls the seeds' is in the second clause and it has been public since 2008.

Cited in

Three Laboratories Have Dated The 1,412-Metre Band. I Have All Three Numbers.Suppressed Science · Aug 24
1,842 Metres Went Into The Freezer. The Analysis Has Eaten 1,109 Of Them.Deep History · Aug 22
The Freezer Was Moved. The Work Order Is Dated Fourteen Months Earlier.The Body · Aug 22
One Withdrawal Has Ever Been Made From The Vault. It Went To Aleppo.Money & Mechanisms · Aug 9