Ole Varmer

Ole Varmer brings over 30 years of legal experience in international and U.S. environmental and historic preservation law. He spent nearly 33 years at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where he developed deep expertise in the Law of the Sea, marine environmental law, maritime law, and cultural and natural heritage law. Most recently, he served as the legal expert on the UNESCO team that produced the 2019 Evaluation Report of the 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. He is now a Senior Fellow at The Ocean Foundation, working to integrate underwater cultural heritage into the organization's mission.

At NOAA, Varmer represented the United States at UNESCO meetings on underwater cultural heritage and World Heritage, and played a leading role in the multilateral negotiation of the International Agreement on the Titanic and its implementing legislation. He was the lead attorney in establishing several Marine Protected Areas, including the Florida Keys, Stellwagen Bank, and Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuaries, and successfully defended the application of environmental and heritage laws in multiple cases. He holds a J.D. from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law and has authored dozens of legal publications on cultural and natural heritage, including a widely referenced Underwater Cultural Heritage Law Study published on the UNESCO website.

Mr. Varmer will discuss the origins of the UNESCO 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, including how a Titanic artifact display at the British National Maritime Museum unexpectedly shaped the course of international negotiations. He will examine the Convention's core provisions, their alignment with U.S. historic preservation law, and the jurisdictional concerns that have kept the United States from becoming a party.