A Study on the Construction of the Multiple Fishery Cooperation System Between Korea, China and Japan

한.중.일 다자간 어업협력체 구성방안 연구

Since the declaration made by UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on EEZs, The open seas of Northeast Asia, considerd as a convention area, needed new agreements in conformity with the changes brought by the introduction of the Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ) system. The Contracting Parties of these agreements set up their own EEZs, which extend certain ranges from their baselines, Fishing in the other party's EEZ is done based on mutual agreements, which take into account traditional fishing activity in the zones. Seperate fishries management systems, in accordance with the relevant legal status of the waters, are applied to individual overlapping areas: Middle Zone in the Bast Sea and the waters south of jeju Island, Interim Measure Zone in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, and the Transitional Zone in the Yellow Sea. They decided to conclude fisheries agreements as the provisional agreement under Article 74(3) of the UN Convention before the delimitations of the EEZs to avoid the territorial disputes. China and Japan concluded the Fishries Agreement in the November 1997, allowing each coastal State 52 mile EEZ. it was followed by Korea and Japan in September 1998, reaching a final compromise. And also Korea and China came to a satisfactary settlement in November 1998. Fisheries agreements have been established between the three North-east Asian States, the agreement are all bilateral. That implies inefficient resource management on the overlapping waters of the three states, especially on the East China Sea. The Korea-Japan Fisheries Agreement and the China-Japan Fishery Agreement worked as governing rules in the North-east Asian seas before the establishment of EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones). However the conclusion of the bilateral fishery agreements, Korea China and Japan have developed EEZs, and these three countries have competed for the exploitation of fisheries resources. Therefore, the issue of fisheries resource management was no longer a single countries' problem and emerged as a common issue facing these three countries. In recognition of the above-mentioned problem, it is needed for the construction of cooperative System fishery management in the North-east Asian seas. Therefore, cooperative measures should be establishied. The final goal of the construction of fisheries management cooperative system is to establish sustainable fisheries in the North-east Asian seas. However, there is a big difference in fisheries management tools, fishing gear, exploitation rate of species, etc. This implies that a careful approach should be taken in order to achieve the cooperative fisheries management among Korea, China and Japan. conclusionly, the Governments of Korea, China and Japan should complement three bilateral agreemens, and which they prepares to 'Fisheries Resource Restore Program' Between Korea, China and Japan in the adjacent waters south of Jeju Island.