. . . By the stroke of one in the morning, delegations in Paris at the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH), voted in favor of a nonexistent document. The others, including the U.S., U.K., Norway and Greece, either voted against it or abstained.

. . . International experts have indicated that they cannot ever recall a vote upon a text which was not presented in writing. In fact, the actual final text was not available until almost a week after delegations returned home. These countries are now unable to amend or change the wording in any way, having previously voted in favor of a document they had not seen at the time.

. . . The final draft, without revision, or any further input from any country will now be submitted as is to the General Assembly for their approval in October, 2001

. . . It remains to be seen if the General Assembly legal experts may be concerned by this apparent palpable breach of proper proceedings in voting in a document which did not exist at the time of the vote. Or it might be that the General Assembly may consider returning the draft back to the drafting convention and consider a final draft and its pre-approval to be no more ‘than in principle.’ Only back to the drawing board then? Or will the General Assembly merely rubber stamp a final draft which many delegations were desperate to push through at almost any expense in any event, notwithstanding a patently improper legal vote?

. . . Depending upon if the General Assembly approves and the convention receives at least 10 States signatories, one may view the late night maneuvering of UNESCO’ UCH as a means which justifies the end, or a purely Machiavellian ending to an otherwise preordained conclusion. However, no matter which view one holds, the proverbial wind was taken out of their sail with the U.S. pronouncement within minutes of the vote. We (the U.S.) cannot accept this text. Thus an important underpinning was lost to the convention before it could have the impact of the vote felt.

. . . Eventually joining the U.S. In not supporting the Final Draft were U.K., Norway, Greece, Turkey, the Russia Federation, France, Germany, the Netherlands, China, Sweden, Venezuela and Chile. Whether or not this draft endures the rocky road to ratification or not isn’t certain by any means. However, even in its convoluted and at times vague and confusing verbiage, the message is clear for anyone involved in underwater cultural activity. There will now be more stringent and perhaps even prohibitive controls upon what was perhaps previously regarded as an adjunct to freedom of the seas, including any private rights of individuals.

. . . By and large, this convention was driven by and was designed to address archaeological concerns, not legal. Difficulties regarding regularizing this convention with Law of the Sea concepts remain problematic, if not irreconcilable, in fact, experts attending may have qualified by archaeological standards, but little else. One only has to look at the final legal step of this Convention to appreciate the lack of legal procedure which may eventually be its own death knell. A blind vote in the middle of the night by a Plenary asked to vote on an invisible document. The type of clear issue which may ultimately block the proponents from the goal they so desperately sought.