Asian Territorial Disputes and the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty: The Case of Dokdo

Abstract

Abstract This Article analyzes whether the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, the only multilateral international agreement that draws borders in East Asia, resolves the longstanding dispute over Dokdo between Korea and Japan. It uses the dispute to draw larger lessons about the nature of the treaty that ended World War II in the Pacific and how it structured the peace in Asia differently from that in Europe. It uses U.S. archival material to reconstruct the history of the making of the Treaty, which continues to be the most significant international legal instrument governing post-WWII Asia. Although the Republic of Korea demonstrated a long history of control over Dokdo, Japan annexed the island on February 22, 1905. Japan places much importance on the Treaty’s silence because the Treaty otherwise required Japan to relinquish the territories it acquired before and during World War II. After the fall of the Nationalist government in China, the United States decided to rebuild Japan into a strong regional ally, and consequently negotiated a generous peace treaty with its former WWII enemy. This Article concludes that the Treaty left Dokdo, along with other important issues, open for future resolution.