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.

Underwater Cultural Heritage investigates cases of underwater cultural heritage, exploring ethical issues that have never been studied before. A vast cultural heritage lies beneath the sea, including the archaeological remains of more than three million vessels, as well as historic monuments and whole cities. In addition, climate change, population growth and current events around the world mean that new underwater cultural heritage is being created faster than ever before. It is, therefore, essential that the ethical issues related to the management of such heritage are considered now, especially as decisions made now will bestow the heritage with a value and will establish legal frameworks that could be used either to protect or harm underwater heritage in the future. Considering a range of challenges related to underwater cultural heritage - including preservation, management, use, sustainability, valuation, politics, identity, human rights, and intangible heritage - the book presents case studies that both illustrate the key ethical issues and also offer possible solutions to help navigate such challenges. The book will also explore the various legislative instruments protecting underwater cultural heritage and emphasise the importance of revising and updating legal frameworks, whilst also taking into account ethical concerns that may expose cultural heritage to more serious menaces. Underwater Cultural Heritage draws on case studies from around the globe and, as such, should be of great interest to academics, researchers and students working in heritage studies, archaeology, history, politics and sustainability. It should also be appealing to heritage practitioners and policymakers who want to learn more about the issues surrounding not only management of underwater cultural heritage but management of cultural heritage in general.

Provides a comprehensive examination of the field of International Cultural Heritage Law, Explores links with other areas of public and private international law, as well as analysing how cultural heritage law is contributing to the development of international law as a whole, Examines the implementation of cultural heritage law in a wide range of regional contexts including Africa, Americas, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East Book jacket.

The aim of this series is to publish significant and original research on and scholarly analysis of all aspects of cultural heritage law through the lens of international law, private international law, and comparative law. The series is wide in scope, traversing disciplines, regions, and viewpoints. Topics given particular prominence are those which, while of interest to academic lawyers, have significant bearing on policymaking and current public discourse on the interaction between art, heritage, and the law. Book jacket.

The recent centenary of WWI has prompted a shift in the way attention is focused on legacy shipwrecks. This timely book considers the development of the laws that apply to these wrecks and the issues that surround them, and deftly analyses the adequacy of the existing legal framework to fulfil its promise of protecting legacy wrecks for future generations as historical and archaeological resources, memorials and, most importantly, as maritime war graves. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial}

This book brings together perspectives on maritime and underwater cultural heritage (MUCH) in selected countries around the Indian Ocean rim that are linked by the historic and Arabian maritime trade routes. It explores how selected countries have adapted maritime archaeological and UCH management methodologies rooted in western contexts to their own situations. It assesses how new heritage management burdens have been placed on states by outsiders wishing to conserve their own heritage in foreign waters. It investigates what these new pressures are and asks what the future holds for the region. Each chapter outlines the development of MUCH in the author’s home nation, provides an overview of current frameworks and activities, and looks to the future of research and management. The chapters draw conclusions regarding what has driven the process of developing individual approaches and perspectives and what the results have been. They ask if the focus is on management or research, and if the MUCH vision is focused seaward or towards the hinterland. A common thread that binds the chapters is the adaptation of western management and practice structures to contexts where the binaries such as tangible and intangible, natural and cultural, and submerged and terrestrial become blurred. It examines how states have confronted management and research challenges on sites that are validated primarily by European expansion perspectives.

This book covers wreck law as an integrated whole, going beyond the question of "removal" to include issues such as the ownership of wreck and how the law deals with the many commercial law problems arising after ships have been wrecked during the maritime commercial adventure. The book offers authoritative guidance on the genesis and meaning of the Nairobi Wreck Removal Convention 2007, and the interpretation of its often-complex provisions as they apply both to States trying to use its powers and to shipowners and liability insurers faced by its obligations. The authors explain the increasingly complex inter-relationship between linked areas of maritime law, including salvage, intervention and the overlapping international regimes which deal with pollution from oil, bunkers or hazardous and noxious substances. The book examines how a salvage operation transitions to wreck removal and links the liability provisions with the standard form international commercial contracts actually used by the industry to remove wrecks, eg BIMCO’s Wreckstage 2010, Wreckhire 2010 and Wreckfixed 2010. It also covers the complex requirements concerning the disposal of wrecks, including the latest recycling regulations applicable in 2019. The Law of Wreck will be of value to shipping industry professionals, insurers and legal practitioners, as well as academics and students of maritime law.