International protection of underwater cultural heritage

Ultimately much UCH will be discovered beyond the regulatory competence of any State. Hopefully, if the political will exists, the provisions of the UNESCO Convention that were adopted without consensus, can be renegotiated so that its Rules can be applied to a significantly broader range of underwater cultural heritage than is possible under unilaterally applied domestic laws and State practice. However, the United States is prepared to consider the development of smaller multi-lateral, regional and bi-lateral agreements to protect UCH, and we are certain that other States with advanced underwater technology would be equally interested. We believe that the Titanic and La Belle Agreements contain elements that could be a model for such other agreements.