동북아 해역 권원중첩수역 공동개발합의와 공동환경보호합의 도출 방안

A Study on the Ways to Joint Marine Development and Joint Marine Environmental Protection in Northeast Asia

China, Japan and Korea are the world's top 10 energy consumers, and so very interested in the development of seabed hydrocarbon resources in order to meet their energy demands. The East China Sea is the tri-junction area where three countries' entitlements on the maritime boundaries are overlapped. There are abundant oil reserves in the East China Sea, and therefore competitions among countries are growing to get control of them. Although these countries have concluded the bilateral agreements to jointly develop resources in the East China Sea, they do not function as well. Because joint development and management of seabed petroleum resources can lead to stable development system, and to lower possibility of legal and political disputes, the needs for joint development agreement among three countries are urgent. Meanwhile, Northeast Asian seas are semi-closed seas, which are geographically closed and vulnerable to marine pollution. Moreover there are a lot of nuclear power plants in coastal area, and seabed petroleum resources are being developed. So it is likely to occur nuclear and oil spill accidents. Fukushima nuclear disaster and Bohai Bay oil spill accident in 2011 are the cases to exhibit the potential of major marine pollution accidents in this area. It is anticipated that the risks become higher because power plants and offshore oil platforms are extending gradually. Therefore, the ways to seek the joint marine environmental protection agreement focused on regulation of nuclear power plant and offshore oil platform have to be considered. In this paper, we try to find the way to make joint development and joint environmental protection agreement in Northeast Asian seas. We concentrate on the measure to drive joint development of seabed petroleum deposits in East China Sea's overlap area, despite of maritime delimitation and territorial disputes, and we try to drive joint marine environmental protection system to respond to marine pollution and accidents due to offshore oil platform and nuclear power plants. Through these consideration, we seek solutions to deal with lack of energy, disputes of maritime territorial and boundary delimitation, and marine pollution in Northeast Asia.