On Protection Of Underwater Cultural Heritage Beyond China's Jurisdiction

Scattered in the vast sea areas,underwater cultural heritage store memories that retrospect the human civilization thousands of years ago,standing as the authentic testimony of marine and cultural vicissitude along the stretches of history as well as bringing invaluable significance to the economy,culture and technology in the modern society.With the development of archaeological technique,the underwater cultural heritage has re-caught the public attention and gradually came back to vision again,including the underwater cultural heritages located in the sea area under the jurisdiction of one country but having historical,cultural,archeological and other linkages with other countries,or in areas beyond the jurisdiction of any country.The gaps of legal provisions for those underwater cultural heritage preservation and ownership claims between different countries are nevertheless hard to be ignored.Due to the fact that these parts of heritages are outside the jurisdiction of China,which drives to lack of corresponding protection regulations over those heritages,and that China has not acceded to the 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage and cannot participate in its international cooperation protection mechanism,therefore is facing a severe situation in the protection of these underwater cultural heritage beyond national jurisdictionBased on the analysis of the existing international conventions and Chinese domestic laws,this thesis intends to start from two clues:improving domestic law and strengthening international cooperation,emphasize two aspects:adjusting the scale of jurisdiction and establishing protection mechanism,and propose measures for the protection of four types of underwater cultural heritage beyond China's jurisdiction.This thesis is composed of three parts:introduction,main text and conclusion.The beginning part briefly introduces the research background,significance and innovation points.The main text is split into three chapters:the first one refers to two prevalent major conventions involved in the field of underwater heritage protection mechanism and then discusses their perspectives of principle,development,protection mode and relationships with other conventions.The second chapter analyzes China's two current laws regarding the protection of underwater cultural heritage,focusing on the definition of underwater cultural heritage,the principles of protection,ownership and jurisdiction claims,and relevant provisions of diplomatic cooperation,as well as paying attention to the contrast between the two international conventions mentioned in the first chapter and the Revised Draft of Regulation of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Relics(Submitted for Review)on March 19,2019 which is an important amendment related to China's claim to underwater cultural heritage beyond China's jurisdiction.The problems in the protection of these underwater cultural heritage in terms of both breadth and strength are also summarized at the end of this chapter.On the basis of the international and domestic laws analysis and the principles of foreign cooperation for underwater heritage protection,the third part discusses the following four aspects,namely,the participation in the Convention,the signing of bilateral and multilateral agreements,the revision of domestic law and the cooperation in justice,technology and information.It analyzes the advantages,disadvantages and preparations before joining in the Convention,the adjustment of national underwater cultural heritage legislation in considering of the definition and standards of underwater cultural heritage,jurisdiction claims,protection principles,relationship between ownership and jurisdiction and notices for bilateral or multilateral treaties.The conclusion part is a summary of this paper,emphasizing the needs to pay attention to the necessity,urgency,and criticality of protection of underwater cultural heritage beyond China's jurisdiction.