이어도의 국제법적 지위 및 '이어도 문제'의 해결방안에 관한 연구

Abstract

Although the UNCLOS(United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) has been used around the world as a new maritime order, the conflicts about maritime jurisdiction and territorial sovereignty disputes over island have grown among the Northeast countries. This is because many countries are seeking to utilize the various maritime resources, science research, energy, and to control the traffic of their neighboring maritime area. The jurisdiction problem of Ieodo between Korea and China, hasn't yet been solved by an agreement and it remains in conflict in spite of long-term negotiations. The Korean government has taken the policy condition that Ieodo and its neighboring waters are included in Korea's jurisdiction according to UNCLOS and its 'principle of equidistance(median line)', because of the closer distance comparing with China and that there are no special matters about maritime border delimitation between Korea and China. However, China has asserted that the overall fair solution is to consider the formation process of the continental shelf between Korea and China and coastline distance. The two countries have made some efforts to end the disagreement including the Korea-China fisheries agreement as a temporary step before the formal conclusion of maritime border delimitation. However, some conflicts have arisen between two countries since they have not reached an agreement about the maritime border delimitation Recently the issue of Ieodo has been recognized as a comprehensive problem, that needs to be approached using economic, security and international law perspectives. The interested countries such as Japan, North Korea, Russia, the U.S, and direct interest countries like Korea and China, have focused on the issues about Ieodo and its maritime jurisdiction in the complicated Northeast Asia's political situations. The purpose of this thesis is not only to suggest the necessity of mutual agreement based on an international law between the two nations, Korea and China, but also to propose the ways to reinforce the practical jurisdiction for Ieodo and the maritime science base through a comprehensive maritime policy and the related legislation. Establishing a maritime cooperation system among Northeast Asian Countries was also suggested as the Ieodo problem solution in the result part of the study. This study proposes that Korea government need to set up the governance system about various maritime issues, to lead to collective cooperation for the regional maritime governance and suggest the principle and the criterion in the domestic perspective and to reinforce the related diplomatic capacity in the extrinsic perspective. The role of the Jeju local government for settling the Ieodo problem, especially focused on solution of the international law which also significant to realizing the spirit of the international law. It is well-known to us that UNCLOS considers a variety of points such as the sovereignty over islands of all countries, the facilitation of international transportation, peaceful usage of the maritime, the preservation of maritime living resources and maritime environment and aims to establish the maritime law and order for realizing the above-suggested points. Therefore, the peaceful usage in seas around the Ieodo by Korea government under the control of international approval will be contributing the co-prosperity among Northeast Asian countries, the international economic order as well as achieving the spirit of international law for co-prosperity of mankind.