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The Law of the Sea Treaty and Underwater Cultural Resources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David R. Watters
David R. Watters*
Affiliation:
Section of Man, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
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Abstract

The Convention on the Law of the Sea, the culminating document of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, received favorable votes from 130 States in April 1982. The United States voted against approval. Articles 149 and 303, which address archaeological and historical objects found in various ocean zones, are compromise measures with ambiguous texts that are subject to interpretation. Archaeologists generally, not simply underwater archaeologists, should be concerned with these provisions because they could set an unfortunate precedent for future international negotiations involving cultural resources, and because they may apply to inundated prehistoric sites as well as to shipwrecks.

Type
Forum
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 1983 , pp. 808 - 816
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1983

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References

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