Maritime Territorial Disputes in Asia and the Relaxation of Cold War Tensions: The Case of Dokdo and the 1965 Japan-Korea Normalization Agreements

Abstract

Abstract This article continues the legal and historical inquiry into the dispute between Japan and Korea over Dokdo, an island that sits in the sea between the two nations, by examining the 1965 normalization agreement between Japan and Korea. Japan has argued that the agreement, in which Japan provided economic aid to Korea, settled all outstanding claims stemming from World War II between the nations, including those over territory. We analyze the meaning of international agreements by combining traditional international legal analysis with U.S. archival records, the standard tools of diplomatic history. Our conclusion from these materials is consistent with our earlier work on the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. The face of the 1965 Agreement does not mention Dokdo. There are no supplemental materials to the agreement from the parties that expressly address the island. Under standard approaches to international legal interpretation, we cannot read a text to resolve an issue that it does not specifically address. Because it did not seek to change the legal status of the island, the 1965 Agreement merely requires that the analysis fall back to the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which itself did not seek to change the status quo as it existed before 1905. American diplomatic materials confirm this reading of the 1965 Agreement. The United States played an all-important role in Asian security affairs. After the Korean War, U.S. leaders in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations wanted Korea and Japan to cooperate on security issues. American leaders believed that rehabilitating Japan and encouraging Japanese aid to Korea would reduce U.S. defense burdens in Asia and support more self-sufficiency on the part of its two closest Asian allies. The U.S. sought to defer any issues that might disrupt an agreement. The United States had pursued a similar kick-the-can-down-the-road strategy in the 1951 Peace Treaty. Dokdo became one of those intractable issues that the United States successfully excluded from the 1965 Agreement and left its resolution to the future.