Political geography in the Western Pacific after the adoption of the 1982 United Nations convention on the law of the sea

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea laid out certain guidelines for delimiting exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and continental shelf boundaries which could aid in resolving maritime boundary questions in the Western Pacific. However, many of these questions are closely related to territorial disputes, primarily over certain islands, which must be resolved before the boundaries themselves can be settled. The basic opposing principles debated at UNCLOS III were the equidistance or median line principle, and that of ‘equitable principles’ and ‘relevant circumstances’. The matter was never resolved and the Convention guidelines remain ambiguous. A case-by-case analysis of a number of contemporary disputes reveals the importance of even these ambiguous provisions for the delimitation of uncertain boundaries. The disputes studied are those between Japan and South Korea; China and North Korea; China and South Korea; South and North Korea; China, Taiwan and Japan; Taiwan and the Philippines; China and Vietnam; and China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. A possible interim solution to many of these disputes would be the establishment of maritime neutral zones in the disputed areas in which joint development of resources could take place in accordance with the 1982 Convention.