Legal mechanism for the Sino-Foreign cooperative exploitation of the underwater cultural heritage in the South China Sea
Abstract There is a massive storage of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) in the South China Sea (SCS) which is an important part of the ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative’. Due to the high political sensitivity of the SCS, UCH is facing the long-standing illegal salvage and a double threat from the coastal States' economic and military strategy. The prevailing international law for protecting UCH in SCS is somewhat ambiguous and insufficient. China has enacted a statute in 1989 to regulate the exploitation and protection of UCH, however, the statute is far from detailed. Therefore, with a purpose to enhance the protection of UCH in SCS, this paper tries to build a more effective legal system, which refers to the international law promoting regional cooperation, as well as the perfection of Chinese domestic law regulating specific Sino-Foreign cooperation activities on UCH exploitation. As for the latter, the authors try to set up a corresponding legal system including the aspects of: (1) clarifying the mode of cooperation; (2) perfecting the rules regulating the specific operations and activities; and (3) establishing the regimes of rewards and legal liability.