International Law of Underwater Cultural Heritage

This book brings together three distinct areas of International Law – namely Environmental, Heritage and Ocean Law – to address the international legal protection of historically significant wrecks, with particular focus on the environmental hazards they may pose. The confluence of Heritage Law and the Law of the Sea with International Environmental Law represents an important development in international governance strategies for the twenty-first century, in particular those legal and administrative regimes that concern the world’s oceans and underwater cultural heritage protection. Importantly, connections between international legal regimes, such as the 1982 Law of the Sea, and institutions like the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and United Nations Education Scientific Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), can play a crucial part in governance strategies that involve the regulation of marine pollution and historic shipwrecks.

Kim Browne is a Lawyer, Researcher and Lecturer specialising in International Law. As a Legal Advisor and Lecturer her main fields are International Cultural Heritage Law, the Law of Sea, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, Global Health, and Mining and Resources Law. Dr Browne holds visiting positions at different universities in the Asia-Pacific, including Mongolia and Vietnam. She was Senior Lecturer and Course Director for Law at Charles Sturt University, Australia in 2016 and Course Director for Policing and Criminal Justice between 2014 and 2016. Dr Browne also has extensive experience in designing and delivering international law programs for industry, government and legal professionals, including authoring the legal curriculum for Charles Sturt University’s inaugural Bachelor of Laws Degree in 2015. Dr Browne achieved her Master of Laws at the Australian National University and her Master of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Australia. She continued study of International Law at the University of Canberra, completing her PhD in 2017. Today, as a postgraduate scholar at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Browne is pursuing further her interests in International Law.

Murray Raff is an Emeritus Professor in the Canberra Law School, at University of Canberra in Australia. His main fields are Environmental Law and Property Law. Professor Raff has undertaken many projects on an international comparative basis. He is the general editor of the Property Law volume of the International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Würzburg, and a Visiting Fellow of the Australian National University. Professor Raff also has experience in legal policy development with the Law Reform Commission of Victoria and in legal practice. Professor Raff was enrolled as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia) in 1983. He has extensive experience of Environmental, Planning and Heritage Law from a community perspective – he helped to found the Environment Defenders Office (Victoria), a community legal centre, and was a director of the organisation for 16 years, chairing it for six of those years. Professor Raff graduated Bachelor of Jurisprudence and Bachelor of Laws with Honours from Monash University and Doctor of Philosophy from University of Melbourne. His Ph D thesis, researched in the course of visits to the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, was largely published as Private Property and Environmental Responsibility – a Comparative Study of German Real Property Law, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 2003.