The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage 2001

Abstract

This Project will focus on the shipwreck element of this wider underwater cultural heritage. The UK has a wide range of shipwrecks of many nations within its territorial sea and adjacent international waters. Having been a major naval power since the late sixteenth century, and the world’s largest such power from the early eighteenth century until well into the twentieth century, supplemented by a merchant marine of equal scale, the UK also has historical ties to many shipwrecks in the territorial seas and adjacent waters of a considerable number of States elsewhere in the world. Underwater cultural heritage in the UK’s territorial sea can be afforded appropriate protection under domestic law, policy and practice. However, the threats posed by human activities of all sorts to UCH in international waters adjacent to the coast of the UK, and on UCH elsewhere in the world, both within other States’ jurisdiction and in international waters, in which the UK has an interest, continue to grow. The discovery in the last few decades of wrecks such as RMS Titanic (1912) in 3,800 m of water, and Royal Navy vessels like HMS Hood (1941) in 2,700 m of water, HMS Ark Royal (1941) in 1,070 m of water and HMS Victory (1744) in 90 m of water, for example, shows that continuing developments in underwater technology mean that sites to which access was impossible until relatively recently are now accessible to those with the funds to pay for this