Spain relinquished all claims to shipwrecks in 1648
Spain signed a treaty relinquishing all claims to their shipwrecks prior to 1750. I would appreciate any links to verification of this treaty. I know there is a post about this on Tnet but I can't find it.
Article II of the Treaty of Munster, 1648, signed in Westphalia to end the Thirty Year's War.
Avalon Project - Treaty of Westphalia
I keep telling this to everyone who will listen. Furthermore, 99.9 % of all historians and political scientist agree that this the beginning of modern day nation-state sovereignty, with the principles of defined borders and autonomy of governance within those borders articulated and agreed to for the first time in 1648. Indeed, our current World Order, that is the United Nations and all that comes with in the practice of International Law and so on, is known as the Westphalian System or Westphalian World Order. That is because the modern system evolved from the Treaty of Munster and the admittedly Euro-centric signatories who extended diplomatic recognition within that community of nations, one at a time to subsequent countries through history beginning with the Russian Empire in 1721.
Prior to 1648 the World Order (Euro-centric) was known as the era of Christendom, with the Vatican as the Court of Original Jurisdiction in nearly all matters of international dispute and internal governance. Family Dynasties and religious edict determined national identity. It should noted that there were other centers of power in the world prior to 1648, such as China with its uninterrupted 5,000 year history and cultural identity and the Persian Empire just to name two. It could have been that the world could have coalesced around either one of these centers of power and the world order would be entirely different, but it did not and that is in part the source of the problems in the South China Sea today. There is a principle in international law that has bound each country to the consensus of principles in the world order as they received diplomatic recognition. In other words, a newly recognized country could not come in and challenge the fundamental principles of the Treaty of Munster and the Westphalian System. In the case of China, reciprocal diplomatic recognition was
forced upon her by military force by the British in the 1800's. China is basically saying "we held dominion over these islands for 5,000 years". The push back from the US and others is that China signed on to a post 1648 World Order and therefore those islands are subject to international rules and rights of navigation since
then. So you can see it is problematic to allow Spain or France to go back on a pre-1648 fishing trip and not China. Make no mistake about it the Westpalian System is under attack from numerous sides. The radical Muslims wish to organize the would on religious principles and various organizations such as the European Union threaten Westphalian Sovereignty. Read or listen (YouTube) to the Henry Kissenger's. "World Order"
Let's cut to the chase:
Pre-1648 Spain has no standing in US Court. It did not have the credentials then, that are required today to have Sovereign Standing. Spain was a quasi-religious entity that drew its authority from the Pope, who drew his authority from a burning bush. A US Court cannot validate or rule on Catholic Edict. It is that simple.
Besides the fact that Spain and the other signatories including France abandoned all of their shipwrecks in the Treaty of Munster and
modern day, state sovereignty did not exist, hence Sovereign Immunity did not exist before then.
A corner stone principle of International Law is the "Doctrine of Inter-temporal Law". It say that disputes must be resolved in terms of the law in effect at the time the events or dispute occurred, not at the time the dispute is raised or comes up for resolution.
Therefore you cannot confer upon pre-1648 Spain or France rights they did not have. Sovereign Immunity did not exist, had never been articulated or practiced before 1648. Even if it had existed, Spain, France and all others abandoned all
pre-1648 shipwrecks outside its own modern day territory. If you think Spain did not abandon its shipwrecks in the Treaty of Munster, just consider that Spain actually renounced the Treaty of Tordesillas that conferred half of earth each to Spain and Portugal in the Papal Bull of 1494 signed by Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI.
Let Spain by its own hand explain to you that it was not a nation-state pre-1648. Read the text of the "Requerimiento" (Wikipedia) as read to the Aztecs and the Incas to explain Spain's dominion over them.
Is the US Court going to hear appeals on that? We are hurdling towards a date in the near future when all of this will be settled. There must be a line in the sand where modern day state sovereignty begins, it is 1648. It is the world's best kept secret.
The times they use the offshore dredges, they run right thru any possible buried 'Cultural Heritage". Back to your original idea, Another anchored salvage boat with a good propwash would accomplish basicly the same thing. It would just double the cost of the salvage operation. Then the hurricanes could come and fill all of it back in for fun! As far as I'm concerned, this is all an exercise in bullcrap. It's just a way for the state to impede treasure hunting. Methods used in underwater archeology don't work in the dynamic surf zone.
