In Maritime Disputes in Northeast Asia: Regional Challenges and Cooperation, Suk Kyoon Kim provides an important multidisciplinary perspective on maritime disputes in one of the most dynamic areas of the world: Northeast Asia, a region of divergent political and economic systems where the legacy of a tumultuous past continues to overshadow current events. The text highlights maritime issues on the Korean Peninsula and extends an analytical eye to neighboring China, Japan and Russia. Kim explores in-depth the factors and issues at stake with complex maritime disputes, focusing on maritime boundary delimitation, territory, energy resources, fishery, marine pollution, and security and safety. This volume provides a timely international law perspective informed by an intricate historical, political, and socio-economic context, while offering a vision for future cooperation.

The Law of the Sea is a vast and multi-faceted area of international law. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the Convention constitute essential instruments of the law of the sea governing a new maritime order for the international community. With its entry into force on November 16, 1994, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has virtually become the Magna Carta of the Oceans, or the Constitution for the Oceans. Testifying to its success is the number of Parties adhering to it, now totaling 132 States, including one international organization, the European Community. The world is entering the era of a New Maritime Order based on near-universal adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In the wake of the Convention's entry into force and its ratification by many States in Northeast Asia, a new maritime order is emerging in the region. The littoral States have enacted and promulgated new national legislation to incorporate the provisions of the UN Convention into their domestic legal order. The three littoral States China, Japan and South Korea concluded or initialed bilateral fisheries agreements based on the new concept of extended jurisdiction set forth by the UN Convention. The UN Convention will, however, present even more challenges than opportunities for the littoral States of Northeast Asia in their quest for a new maritime order. The maritime security situation in the region has been and will continue to be extremely volatile due to conflicting claims, disputed boundaries, unregulated pollution of the marine environment and widespread illegal activities at sea. The author has set the both pragmatic and ambitious aim of outlining the emerging maritime order in Northeast Asia. As a practitioner of the law of the sea who has participated in bilateral and multilateral negotiations on maritime affairs, the author sheds light on the new maritime order in the making at the international and regional levels. The author also delineates the main issues and disputes hindering the establishment of a new maritime order in the region and present policy options that could contribute to erecting a solid maritime order in the region by peaceful and cooperative means. Finally, the author presents a compilation of relevant legal texts, most of which were produced after the entry into force of the UN Convention, in the hope that this collection will prove useful for desk officers in charge of ocean affairs in promoting peaceful and constructive solutions for maritime issues in Northeast Asia. This work serves as a realistic analysis of the current law and State practice, as well as of the progressive development of the law of the sea and its codification in the wake of the entry into force of the 1982 UN Convention.

This book takes an in-depth look at Japan's long-festering territorial and maritime disputes with its three neighbors, China, South Korea and the Russian Federation. Japan has established friendly relations with all three former adversaries since the end of World War II, but these sovereignty issues remain. All three disagreements have recently flared into potentially violent incidents that could erupt again at any time. This book explores each situation and proposes concrete compromise solutions to each of the outstanding disputes.

A surprising number of maritime boundaries remain unresolved, and a range of reasons can be cited to explain why the process of delimiting these boundaries has been so slow. This volume addresses and analyzes some of these reasons, focusing on some of the volatile disputes in Northeast Asia and in North America. Scholars from Asia, the United States, and Europe grapple with festering controversies and apply insights gained from resolved disputes to those that remain unresolved. Islands continue to haunt this process, and the way in which they should affect maritime boundaries remains in dispute. The United States has a number of disputed boundaries with its neighbors to the north and south, and these are examined. Antarctica is a concern of all nations, and the regimes governing the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica are analyzed. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea was created to allow countries to resolve their disputes peacefully, and two chapters look at how this new court is operating. The impact of sea-level rise on maritime boundaries is given special attention in the opening chapter. This volume presents a wonderful collection of provocative chapters written by the top scholars in the field of International Ocean Law. It should help scholars, students, and decision makers to understand the current state of this field and to move some of the difficult disputes toward resolution.

Territorial disputes are one of the main sources of tension in Northeast Asia. Escalation in such conflicts often stems from a widely shared public perception that the territory in question is of the utmost importance to the nation. While that's frequently not true in economic, military, or political terms, citizens' groups and other domestic actors throughout the region have mounted sustained campaigns to protect or recover disputed islands. Quite often, these campaigns have wide-ranging domestic and international consequences. Why and how do territorial disputes that at one point mattered little, become salient? Focusing on non-state actors rather than political elites, Alexander Bukh explains how and why apparently inconsequential territories become central to national discourse in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. These Islands Are Ours challenges the conventional wisdom that disputes-related campaigns originate in the desire to protect national territory and traces their roots to times of crisis in the respective societies. This book gives us a new way to understand the nature of territorial disputes and how they inform national identities by exploring the processes of their social construction, and amplification.

This Handbook examines the theory and practice of international relations in Asia. Building on an investigation of how various theoretical approaches to international relations can elucidate Asia's empirical realities, authors examine the foreign relations and policies of major countries or sets of countries.

'The book has been written by many highly qualified observers and academicians that have spent a lot of time observing and analyzing the recent developments in the South China Sea, particularly those relating to the dispute and way of overcoming them. I do hope that this publication will throw some light on such important matters and indicate possible roads to follow in solving the territorial disputes through joint development concept.' Hasjim Djalal, Director of Southeast Asian Studies, Jakarta, Indonesia This highly informative and up-to-date book brings together expert scholars in law of the sea to explore the legal and geopolitical aspects of the South China Sea disputes and provide an in-depth examination on the prospects of joint development in the South China Sea. The South China Sea has long been regarded as a source of conflict and tension in Asia. Underlying this conflict is the dispute between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei over the features in the South China Sea, as well as the resources in the surrounding waters. One viable solution is for the claimants to set aside their claims and jointly develop the hydrocarbon resources in the South China Sea. Unlike previous works, this book takes a unique approach by examining existing joint development arrangements in Asia to see if there are any 'lessons learnt' that may be applicable to the South China Sea. This approach has enabled the editors to move beyond a mere theoretical discussion on joint development and focus on the law, policy and practical issues related to joint development. Beyond Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea will strongly appeal to Government officials, policy-makers from ASEAN Countries, China and the United States, as well as academics, particularly those who are involved in legal scholarship on the South China Sea disputes. Practitioners of oil and gas law will also find much to benefit them in this book.