Paris, March 26 (No.2001-47) - The 4th Meeting of Governmental Experts on the Draft Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage opened at UNESCO today with a strong plea by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, for the experts to agree on the Draft so that it can be submitted for adoption at the next session of the General Conference of UNESCO's Member States later this year.

As he opened the meeting - which is scheduled to continue, at UNESCO Headquarters, until April 6 - Mr Matsuura urged the over 250 participants to reach a consensus on the issue: "I invite you all - I urge you all - to decide at this meeting, now, collectively, what is acceptable to as many States as possible, and not what would be ideal for you or your State individually. It has often been said, in such negotiations, that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Do not let this opportunity pass, to have an important, effective and unique instrument to protect an aspect of heritage which is under very serious threat."

Pointing with sadness to the recent "deliberate destruction of a people's heritage in Afghanistan", the Director-General argued that many other dangers threaten our heritage, "not only international and internal armed conflicts, but also ignorance, unlawful excavation and illegal art trafficking make the implementation of the existing conventions a difficult and often delicate task. UNESCO will continue to raise public awareness and to encourage states to adhere to these legal instruments", he pledged.

Mr Matsuura said that as "the pressure on our cultural heritage is increasing, UNESCO has to cope with these challenges". He added: "Protection of our underwater cultural heritage lacks an adequate universal, international legal regime. Technical progress makes it possible nowadays to explore to any depth and to locate any - not only cultural - property on the seabed. Underwater cultural heritage is unique as each site serves as a time capsule from the moment of its deposit beneath the sea. Legal protection is becoming an urgent necessity."

At the start of the session, the participants elected Carsten Lund of Denmark as Chairman of the meeting. Mr Lund already chaired the three previous meetings which started in the summer of 1998. Work to provide international legal protection to underwater cultural heritage started in 1989 with Cultural Heritage Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA) which later transmitted the project to UNESCO. In 1993, UNESCO's Executive Board invited the Director-General to consider the feasibility of drafting a new instrument for the protection of such heritage.

Despite progress achieved during the previous meetings, some important issues still need to be resolved, notably whether to place sunken warships under the Convention; how to deal with cultural heritage vestiges located on the continental shelf beyond the 12-mile territorial waters; and whether rivers and lakes should be covered by the Convention.

In seeking agreement on the Draft Convention, the participants are facing the challenge of having to integrate different concerns including: respect for existing international laws touching upon this subject such as the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, the particular interests of States, cultural, scholarly, environmental and scientific considerations, the rights of the public and the interests of private entities.

Participants include governmental experts and representatives of the United Nations Division of Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea (DOALOS), the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and the Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the World Underwater Federation. Non-governmental organizations concerned by sea-issues are also represented.

UNESCOPRESS