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"Preface and acknowledgements" [2019] ELECD 2389; in Forrest, Craig (ed), "Maritime Legacies and the Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) vi

Book Title: Maritime Legacies and the Law

Editor(s): Forrest, Craig

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section Title: Preface and acknowledgements

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Preface and acknowledgements
At the centenary of the beginning of the First World War international
attention turned to its legacy. UNESCO, in particular, sought to focus
attention on the oft-ignored war at sea and the wrecks that constitute a
legacy of that conflict. To address this, UNESCO convened a commemor-
ative event in Bruges, Belgium on the centenary of the start of the war.
The event included a meeting of invited delegates at the end of which
participants drafted a resolution calling on States to protect legacy
wrecks. I was fortunate to have attended this meeting and chaired a
sub-panel that drafted those paragraphs of the resolution dealing with the
Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.
Having been party to its negotiation as a member of the South African
Delegation, I have followed its progress through to its coming into force
in 2009 and have continued to advocate for its adoption by States.
Having lived, studied and worked in the United Kingdom, I remember
well the debate within the UK as to its negotiating position and its
subsequent position in relation to the Convention. In Bruges it occurred
to me that the UK's position might better be evaluated through the prism
of a sub-set of underwater cultural heritage of particular importance to
the UK, and at that time, in 1914, that sub-set began to emerge as each
day thereafter, on the centenary of its sinking, a British wreck fell within
the scope ...