뉴스레터

Northeast Asian History Foundation held the 3rd NAHF-KORDI joint academic conference with Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute on November 29, 2011 at the East Sea Branch of the Institute located in Jukbyeon-myeon, Uljin-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do. First of all, this academic conference has a meaning as this is the only academic conference held by this Foundation, an institute of humanities and social sciences, jointly with an institute of natural science.

While the conference was planned for promoting interdisciplinary exchanges of research results, the event had greater importance as East Sea and Dokdo were the topics commonly shared by the two institutes. As this year's conference was the third time of the event, there was a certain amount of expectation from it. In his congratulatory speech, Director of Dokdo Research Institute, LEE Hoon, said that the conference was timely because the conference topics included Dokdo and Ieodo which were both being discussed for the recognition of maritime territories in Northeast Asia. And CHANG Dong-hee, Ambassador for Geographic Names, said in his keynote address titled "Dokdo and East Sea as subjects of recognition of maritime territories in Northeast Asia" that the recent conflicts over maritime territories in Northeast Asia are not irrelevant to the development of the International Law of the Sea.

Understanding maritime territories in Northeast Asia

The first part of the conference dealt with the histories, international politics and international law about Daemado (Tsushima), Dokdo and Ieodo. The broad topic of the first session was "Understanding maritime territories in Northeast Asia". The first presenter Professor Kenneth Robinson, a visiting scholar invited by the Foundation, said in his paper titled "Understanding Tsushima in the early period of Joseon Dynasty" that Korea (Joseon) seemed to have territorial rights over the island during the early period of the dynasty, but the island became gradually included in the Strait of Japan due to Joseon's passive exercise of its territorial rights. On the contrary, Professor LEE Keun-woo, Director of Tsushima Island Research Institute at Pukyong National University, rather understood that Daemado (Tsushima Island) had been a Japanese territory referring to the descriptions relating to the island in 《Haedongjegukgi (Geographical Treatise on the Countries in the East)》 by SHIN Suk-ju. Professor LEE introduced a map precisely describing the 82 wharfs in Daemado. In addition, while the government of Joseon did not show any effort to get detailed information about Daemado, Japan has described the island both precisely and correctly since the 17th century in contrast with the geographic boundary of Joseon, meaning that Joseon's recognition of the island as its own territory was not sufficient according to Professor LEE.

The second presenter was Foundation's Research Fellow JO Yun Su whose topic was "Japanese Policies on Dokdo after the Liberation – centering around the period of the Korea-Japan Talks for Diplomatic Normalization" In his analysis Research Fellow JO Yun Su discussed what should be done to 'resolve the Dokdo issues', stressing the importance of a long-term program to resolve the Dokdo issues. On the other hand, Professor LEE Yong-ho from Yeungnam University stressed that Korea should understand Japan's strategy in relation to Japan's proposal to go to International Court of Justice and should prepare response measures accordingly. Particularly, Korea needs to complement its logic to make people understand the reason why Korea does not agree to Japan's proposal to go to ICJ while Korea has a superior logic from a third person's view.

The third presenter was Professor KIM Bu-chan from Jeju National University who discussed on a topic "The maritime conflicts in Northeast Asia and Ieodo". Professor KIM said that maritime conflicts in Northeast Asia had been caused in some respect by the effectuation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and he mentioned in particular that the conflicts are getting tense to secure maritime resources and maritime jurisdiction.

Marine science investigations in East Sea and Dokdo

The second part of the conference was a special lecture session in which Professor Emeritus PARK Yong-an from Seoul National University presented a topic "The recent movement in the UN's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf". Professor PARK is also a member of the UN's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. According to Professor PARK, Japan submitted a document to the UN's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on November 12, 2008 including Okino-Torishima which has now become a hot potato. In 1987, Japan spent 2.5 million dollars to support Okino-Torishima consisting of two lumps of coral reefs (calcareous rock) with concrete, and the country now claims an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles from this point and the continental shelf as well. Currently, both Korea and China officially object to Japan's extension of its continental shelf limits starting from Okino-Torishima. Discussions on this issue were led by BANG Gyeong-won, a secretary from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the author of this report. Eventually, the Okino-Torishiam case relates to Section 121-3 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that talks about distinction between island and rock. Such distinction will decide whether a country can have a maritime territory like continental shelf or not. 'The continental shelf' is a matter commonly dealt with by the Law and the Natural Science, which proves that this interdisciplinary academic conference had been timely planned.

In the third session of the conference, Dr. KANG Jung-hoon from Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute became the first presenter of the session under a broad topic of "Marine science investigations in East Sea and Dokdo". In a presentation titled "The Outline of a Marine Science Investigation of Dokdo", Dr KANG said that the institute was doing a database construction and management business in order to efficiently produce and distribute knowledge and information on the ecology and marine resources in Dokdo and surrounding areas (Section 8). Proposing the use of "Dokdo effect", he also claimed that the investigation had found - through verification of related phenomena and examination of the effect range - that the sea waters near Dokdo were becoming richer due to submarine waves and the wave heights. Therefore, confirming and advertising this will contribute a lot to the defense of our sovereignty over Dokdo, Dr KANG expressed his opinion.

The next presentation was made by Dr KIM Hyun-wook from KORDI on a topic of "Construction and operation of Dokdo databases" in which he introduced the construction of a geographic information system database relating to Dokdo, the construction of a Web GIS research information system for Dokdo and the construction and operation of a total information system for Dokdo. The purpose of this research is to provide a base for systematic management and use of Dokdo information by securing marine data on Dokdo and constructing databases. Finally, Director of ASRI, YOON Han-sool, made a presentation on a topic of "Evaluation of Dokdo research results". Director YOON assessed the achievements of the first stage of the project (2006.8~2011.2) according to "The basic plan for sustainable use of Dokdo" and proposed improvements for the project operation in the future. This presentation made me think that it was time to review Foundation's Dokdo Research Institute as it will celebrate its fifth anniversary next year.

Though it is far away from Seoul, Jukbyeon in Gyeongsangbuk-do is closest to Dokdo. As only a limited number of people know this fact, I wanted to let as many people as possible know it through the academic conference. However, Jukbyeon is a remote place taking four to five hours by bus from Seoul, Daegu and Busan. Limited access by external participants produced an unsatisfactory result. For this reason, it was tentatively agreed that next year's conference would be held in Seoul. I hope that a larger audience will attend next year's conference and the conference will be more successful.