As the operator focuses the camera on the shiny object nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, the air in the cramped electronics room is alive with the excitement buzzing through the spectators. A shiny gold bar, surrounded by a carpet of dull yellow lumps is recognized at the same time by nearly everyone around the monitor, and a cheer erupts. This isn’t a movie fantasy any longer - it’s business as usual for a growing number of companies that are utilizing the huge leaps in underwater technology t o explore shipwrecks in the deep.

Untold riches in the deep ocean have been familiar lore of the sea for ages. As we approach the next millenium, a boom in exploration of the deep ocean is certain to follow the quest for the natural resources and military secrets locked in the oceans in the world. While shipwrecks will play a relatively small part of this boom, they capture the attention of the public out of all proportion to their economic impact.

This attention leads us to one of the biggest concerns facing shipwreck explorers. Who should be allowed access to these potentially priceless cultural heritage sites, and what laws govern access to them?

When it comes to shipwrecks, the constituencies and users of the resource are widely varied in their interests and their ethical positions. The actual cultural resource is potentially huge. If you allow for only 1,000 shipwrecks per year during the past 3,000 years that may still exist in a state that could potentially be worthy of designation as cultural heritage site, that would be 3,000,000 sites. It’s not hard to imagine that the number could easily be 5 or 10 times that.

The ultimate disposition and fate of these historical sites will largely be dictated by legal and political policies that are being negotiated in various forums throughout the world right now.

One of the most public debates about the ultimate disposition of shipwrecks is between salvors and archaeologists. On its face, the argument seems rather simple - archaeologists want salvors to leave historic shipwrecks alone, and salvors want to recover them for profit. In fact, the debate has changed significantly during the past decade. The days of indiscriminate exploitation of wrecksites for profit have been consigned to history by all but a few salvors, who are likely to be left behind in forthcoming allocation of these valuable resources.

The majority of salvors today agree to work closely with the archaeological community (and vice-versa). Why, then, is there still a perception of acrimony between the two groups? In the first place, it makes a good story. As with any other public disagreement, the media typically focuses on the loudest extremes of the argument. With the exceptions of the perpetual rantings of the most vocal minority factions, are there any real issues that need to be worked out to develop legitimate policies for the protection of submerged cultural resources?

There is one issue that stands out. It seems that the ultimate disposition of artifacts recovered from shipwrecks is the most difficult issue to resolve. With a few notable exceptions, salvors depend on the sale of artifacts from their expeditions in order to provide them with the income necessary to satisfy investors, and fund expensive excavations.

The ideal situation for the archaeological community, however, would be to keep all the artifacts together in a collection in perpetuity. With museums running out of space, and potentially hundreds of thousands (or more) shipwreck sites’ worth of artifacts to be conserved and stored, it seems obvious that there must be a compromise that would allow reasonable study, but still allow sale of artifacts with minimal archaeological significance.

There is hope for compromise. Odyssey Marine Exploration, for example, has recently signed a joint venture arrangement with the Royal Naval Museum to search for a British Colonial warship that was lost while carrying a large cargo of coins. The terms of this agreement will hopefully serve as a model of cooperation between private and public interests. It accomplishes this by guaranteeing that the cultural and archaeological collection is preserved for the benefit of the scientific community, while allowing the commercial operation to make a profit on the venture. Hopefully, we’ll see a proliferation of similar agreements in the near future.

As complicated as the ethical issues relating to shipwrecks are, the legal issues today can be even more complex. Salvage law has only recently begun to face claims of the historical or archaeological value of sunken ships. This ancient body of law is traditionally the province of national admiralty courts applying either customary law or one of two international treaties, the 1910 Brussels or the 1989 IMO Salvage Conventions. As neither customary nor conventional salvage law now has a widely accepted set of rules addressing the historical or archaeological value of sunken ships, some argue for limitations on salvage.

Salvage is the rendering of assistance to vessels and their cargo in distress at sea, whether afloat, shipwrecked or sunken. The basic purpose of traditional salvage law is to encourage recovery of property lost at sea so that the property can be returned to commerce. Salvors are encouraged by being entitled to a reward for successful recovery, or if the property is found to have been abandoned, to ownership of the recovered property.

The traditional law of salvage thus gives the salvor a right to compensation for services rendered on behalf of the owner. Wrecked or sunken property is subject to the salvage services of the first comer. If the owner of the property, or the master of the vessel, has expressly and reasonably prohibited salvage services, the salvor of that property is not entitled to an award. A salvor may be deprived of the whole or part of the award because of neglect of the salvor, or if the salvor has been guilty of fraud or other dishonest conduct.

The most recent modification to salvage law is contained in the 1989 Salvage Convention, which offers increased protection for the marine environment by requiring both the vessel owner and the salvor to use due care to protect the marine environment, and by permitting the salvor to be rewarded for preventing or minimizing damage to the environment during salvage operations.

The 1910 Convention has no provisions expressly addressing historic shipwrecks. The 1989 Convention permits a State Party to reserve the right not to apply the Convention’s provisions to maritime cultural property of prehistoric, archaeological or historic interests situated on the sea-bed. (Only a few of the States party have done so.) It is not settled whether the 1989 Convention applies to historic shipwrecks in the absence of such a choice.

The 1989 Salvage Convention does not apply to warships entitled to sovereign immunity under generally recognized principles of international law, unless that State decides otherwise.

The two treaties do not address the law of finds. If the property is abandoned, the law of finds, rather than the law of salvage, applies, permitting the admiralty court to award ownership of the property to the finder. Some admiralty courts favors the law of salvage, not the law of finds, because salvage law's purposes, assumptions and rules, directed toward the protection and preservation of maritime property, are more consonant with societal needs and interests. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer in a case pitting the application of admiralty salvage law against the Abandoned Shipwreck Act, deciding unanimously that the State of the Union must prove the wreck is abandoned.

Some modern cases have applied the law of finds to instances of long lost and abandoned wrecks. The Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, with a cargo of gold and other valuables, sank in a hurricane in 1622 off the coast of Florida. In 1972, the wreck was located by Mel Fisher. Gold, silver, artifacts and armament valued at more than $6 million were recovered. U.S. courts upheld the finders' ownership and possession against the claim of the United States. On the other hand, the law of salvage was applied in the case of the SS Central America, a paddle-wheel steamer, lost in a hurricane in September 1867 off Cape Fear, North Carolina, with its cargo of gold.

To make thing even more interesting, the Spanish Government has recently put the United States on notice that it may make a claim against a Spanish ship lost in the early 19^th Century in U.S. territorial waters. What this all points to is that the legal issues relating to shipwrecks today are far from settled. During the course of the next decade, there will undoubtedly be a drastic adjustment in the way that explorers, salvors, archaeologists and governments deal with the intricacies of the ownership and ultimate disposition of submerged cultural resources.

As we move into the next millenium, mankind’s capacity to locate and recover virtually every shipwreck in the ocean will present a unique challenge to the exploration, scientific, salvage, archaeological and legal communities. As shipwreck resource policies evolve, it’s important to remember that they are indeed a priceless resource, and that the knowledge that can be derived from them belongs to everyone.