U.S., Colombian sunken treasure dispute may soon play out at sea

Well Columbia can likely be sued in a US court and they will have interests here as well. This is still one of the examples where governments simply rely on their existence and threat of action to violate agreements that they make or in this case, possibly steal.

I really don't see any reason why a hundred plus year old wreck belongs to anyone, let alone governments that did not exist at the time of the wreck. You want it, you find it. Perhaps there can be a time period where they are protected by national rights similar to copyright periods, but this is over three hundred years old.

If you want a real tragedy, rail infrastructure is woefully backlogged yet government organizations like Boston's won't even try to do it investing less than a fourth of a years requirements because they found out, rail in all forms is damn expensive to operate.

If the Colombian government knew in 1982 the location of $10B in gold, it seems odd that they would not have simply seized it. I know underwater archeology is hard, but if you're simply interested in grabbing gold, is it really beyond the reach of the Colombian navy?