What benefits can States derive from ratifying?
Ratifying the 2001 Convention provides the following advantages to a State: – The protection of underwater cultural heritage is brought to the same level as the protection for land based sites. The 2001 Convention contains certain basic principles for States to consider in their efforts towards a protection of submerged archaeological sites, such as the preference given to in situ preservation or the objection to commercial exploitation of heritage. This will in the long term assure a preservation of underwater cultural heritage similar to sites on land. – States Parties will benefit from cooperation with other States Parties. The cooperation of States with each other and the common effort in a legal protection of heritage sites will ensure that in the future, wrecks and ruins outside the Territorial Sea of a State will also be protected. Also States pledge to co-operate and assist one another to protect and manage the underwater cultural heritage and to exchange, in so far as possible
