International Law Of Underwater Cultural Heritage

The first full-scale study of the international legal framework governing underwater cultural heritage to be published in nearly two decades.

The marine environment is almost ideal for the preservation of artefacts and, until relatively recently, it also provided complete protection from destruction by man. However, the aqualung has made most shallow underwater sites accessible, leading to widespread plundering. Current deep-sea bed technology now threatens deep water sites. There is a need for immediate international action to preserve the man-made environment, alongside the natural one. The enunciation of legal rules to protect the underwater cultural heritage is a complex issue, involving a matrix of interests and laws, both international and national.

This book brings together three distinct areas of International Law – namely Environmental, Heritage and Ocean Law – to address the international legal protection of historically significant wrecks, with particular focus on the environmental hazards they may pose. The confluence of Heritage Law and the Law of the Sea with International Environmental Law represents an important development in international governance strategies for the twenty-first century, in particular those legal and administrative regimes that concern the world’s oceans and underwater cultural heritage protection. Importantly, connections between international legal regimes, such as the 1982 Law of the Sea, and institutions like the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and United Nations Education Scientific Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), can play a crucial part in governance strategies that involve the regulation of marine pollution and historic shipwrecks.

The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage represents a major step forward in the field of international law. New archaeological rules as well as a comprehensive co-operation system among the States concerned are set up by the new Convention. Despite the negative attitude assumed by few States at the moment of voting for the text of the Convention, this new international instrument is welcome by the great majority of States. This volume focuses on the main aspects of the Convention. It is divided in two parts, to describe the situation before and after the adoption (and the forthcoming into force) of the Convention. In the first part the contradictions resulting from the regime established under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea are analysed together with the undesirable results of the application of the rules of admiralty (law of salvage and law of finds) to the underwater cultural heritage. In the second part the negotiation process is described, both in its general aspects (the myths surrounding the draft) and in its specific results (the drafting of each single provision).

The world’s cultural heritage is under threat from war, illicit trafficking, social and economic upheaval, unregulated excavation and neglect. Over a period of almost fifty years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has adopted five international conventions that attempt to protect this cultural heritage. This book comprehensively and critically considers these five UNESCO cultural heritage conventions. The book looks at the conventions in the context of recent events that have exposed the dangers faced by cultural heritage, including the destruction of cultural heritage sites in Iraq and the looting of the Baghdad museum, the destruction the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, the salvage of artefacts from the RMS Titanic and the illicit excavation and trade in Chinese, Peruvian and Italian archaeological objects. As the only existing work to consider all five of the cultural heritage conventions adopted by UNESCO, the book acts as an introduction to this growing area of international law. However, the book does not merely describe the conventional principles and rules, but, critically evaluates the extent to which these international law principles and rules provide an effective and coherent international law framework for the protection of cultural heritage. It is suitable not only for those schooled in the law, but also for those who work with cultural heritage in all its manifestations seeking a broad but critical consideration of this important area of international law.

The legal protection of the underwater cultural heritage is a field in which there is growing international interest. Shipwrecks and other underwater cultural remains in every maritime zone are threatened both by activities ‘directed at’ them, such as treasure hunting, and by activities ‘incidentally affecting’ them, such as mineral exploration and exploitation, pipeline and cable-laying, dredging, and fishing. Since the first edition of this collection (published in 1999), the urgent need for an international legal framework to regulate these activities has been formally recognised by the adoption in 2001 of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. While the prospects for this Convention remain uncertain, it will undoubtedly have a profound influence on national laws and practice in this field. This second collection of essays examines the present state of law, policy and practice in sixteen different jurisdictions around the world in light of the 2001 Convention. Among other things, the viewpoint of each jurisdiction in respect of the Convention is considered and the impact that the Convention is already having, and is likely to have in the future, is explored. Eight of the essays are entirely new, and several additional jurisdictions are covered (Finland, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Norway). The other essays have been thoroughly updated and revised to take account of the Convention. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds, but all have specialist knowledge and experience of their particular jurisdiction and a keen interest in the field.

This title explores the international (including regional) law currently governing the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage in peacetime and related international cultural policy-making. An important aspect of this publication is the emphasis placed on broader policy and other contexts within which, and in response to which, this law has developed.