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Modern technology has made the location and retrieval of shipwrecks possible, but with the rise of statist attitudes in the United Nations, that may change
IN THE 1977 motion picture, The Deep, a young couple, while scuba diving in the Bahamas, discover an ampoule of morphine lying near an old World War II freighter. After befriending a local treasure salvor, the group endeavors to remove all the morphine ampoules from the wreck and destroy the drugs before they fall into the hands of a local bad guy. But the adventure deepens when an old grenade explodes, causing the "floor" of the wreck to collapse, revealing an 18th century Spanish vessel loaded with treasure. In the happy ending, which only Hollywood could create, the team recovers a booty of gold jewelry, the morphine is destroyed and the bad guys get their just comeuppance.
For the adventuresome, this film had a little bit of everything: beautiful scuba diving, treasure, danger, sharks and even voodoo. What it did not have was the probable litigation over ownership rights in the treasure.
LAW OF SALVAGE
Salvage has been defined as "service voluntarily rendered in relieving property from an impending peril at sea or other navigable waters by those under no legal obligation to do so."' The law of marine salvage has as its origins the sea laws of Byzantium and the Mediterranean seaport cities,2 and its earliest roots can be traced to the Rhodian era, 900 years before the Christian era. Rhodian laws were the first to allow a salvor to claim a reward based on a percentage of the cargo or ship recovered and the danger involved in the operation. Awards varied from 10 percent for cargo washed ashore to between 33 and 50 percent for recovered cargo, based on the depth of a shipwreck.
The law of salvage has three areas: property salvage, life salvage, and treasure salvage, the last being the focus of this article. In 1969 in The Blackwall,3 the U.S. Supreme Court set forth the basic principles of maritime salvage, including the principle that a salvor's efforts need to be successful in order to recover a reward, which is known as the "no cure, no pay" principle in contract salvage. The Court stated:
Salvage...