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Hungary ratifies the UNESCO 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage

On 21 March 2014, the Permanent Delegation of Hungary to UNESCO, in the person of the Ambassador H. E. Mrs Katalin Bogyay, submitted the instruments of ratification of the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage to the UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova. In accordance with the Convention, the international treaty shall enter into force in the territories of Hungary in three months.

This ratification represents an important goal in the development of the Convention. The deposit of the legal instruments by Hungary points out the raising awareness on the importance to provide  to the underwater cultural heritage the same tipe protection as that already accorded to land-based heritage. 

The ratification of the Convention by Hungary is an achievement to increase cooperation in the protection of underwater cultural heritage from pillaging and commercial exploitation also in landlocked states. Hungary has got a wide potential on river and lake underwater cultural heritage and underwater archaeology,as well as it counts with important cultural links to the shipwrekcs resulting from the naval endevours of the Austro-Hungarian Fleet.

Hungary joins the other States Parties of the 2001 Convention in the implementation of widely recognized legal and scientific standards for the protection of the underwater cultural heritage.

was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference on November 2 2001 and entered into force on 2 January 2009. The Convention represents the foremost international treaty concerning submerged cultural heritage and it is designed to strengthen legal protection, cooperation, awareness-raising and capacity-building.

Hungary is the to ratify the 2001 Convention.