Sarah Dromgoole, ed. The Protection of the Underwater Cultural
Heritage: National Perspectives In Light of The UNESCO Convention
2001, 2nd ed. pp. 450. $176.00 Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2006. ISBN
10: 90-04-15273-3; 13: 978-90-04-15273-1.
Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, few nations around
the world felt compelled to protect historic shipwrecks and other
underwater cultural heritage (UCH) from vandalism and exploitation.
However, as long-lost shipwrecks became more accessible through the
growing popularity of scuba diving and increasingly sophisticated
underwater search and salvage technology, the need for such legislation
became more apparent. Dromgoole's first edition of this book,
Legal Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National and
International Perspectives (The Hague: Kluwer, 1999), provided a
much-needed look at how various nations were coming to grips with the
problem through domestic legislation. In the first edition, 13 essays
explored a wide variety of legislative schemes from as many nations. A
final essay described the ongoing effort to create an international treaty
to protect UCH in international waters.