Competing Interests in the Underwater Cultural Heritage: A Question of Balance

• Author: M. Z. Mohd Nor & Anowar Zahid
• Pages: 121-122

Competing Interests in UCH 121

IX JEAIL 1 (2016)

M. Z. Mohd Nor

∗

& A. Zahid

∗∗

The exploitation of the underwater cultural heritage (UCH) involves various

competing interests, which are of private and public, commercial and non-commercial

nature. The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater

Cultural Heritage (CPUCH) aims to deal with various issues apropos those competing

interests. Its basic concerns include how UCH should be best protected, how in situ

preservation should be practised, whether UCH should be commercialized at all or

not, and whether salvage should be included in the UCH law. This paper examines

these said competing interests and then looks for a balance between them. With an

in-depth analysis of the concerned principles and rules, it argues for combination of

‘mutuality interests’ in consonance with the basic legislative scheme of the CPUCH.

This approach is meant for the exploitation of UCH both for commercial and non-

   

community.

Keywords

Underwater Cultural Heritage, Competing Interests, Exploitation,

CPUCH, In Situ Preservation

Competing Interests

in the Underwater Cultural

Heritage: A Question

of Balance

∗ Associate Professor of law at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia). LL.B (IIUM), LL.M.

(Malaya), Ph.D. (Edinburgh). ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7824-7984. The author may be contacted at: zuhdi@

ukm.edu.my / Address: Faculty of Law, UKM, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia.

∗∗ Senior Lecturer of law at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia). LL.B./LL.M.(U. Dhaka),

LL.M.(Dalhousie), Ph.D. (Manchester). ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3877-7280 The author may be contacted

at: anowar_zahid@ukm.my / Address: Faculty of Law, UKM, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2016.9.1.06