• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.30-43
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• 2003

The geography, circulation pattern, and ecology show that the semi-closed seas of Northwest Pacific be managed as one complete system. Ongoing multilateral cooperative efforts relevant to marine environmental protection in the Northwest Pacific area, include the Working Group for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) established under the auspices of WNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commissions, the UNDP/GEF Programme on Prevention and Management of Marine Pollution in East Asian Seas (PEMSEA), the North Pacific Marine Science Organization(PICES), and the United Nations Environment Programme(WNEP)'s Northwest Pacific Action Plan(NOWPAP). The present report firstly describes the current situations on the existing regional cooperative regimes for marine environmental conservation in the Northwest Pacific region, with a special respect to the Northwest Pacific Action Plan(NOWPAP) which was adopted in 1994 by Japan, People's Republic of China, Republic of Korea and Russian Federation. Then, problems of the existing regimes are also discussed, together with the suggestion of the possible solutions, focusing on NOWPAP. Suggestions include: 1) the Northeast Asian countries should understand the importance of legally-binding regional convention, and should build up any legally-binding instrument which can function as a big umbrella for real regional cooperation without prejudice to the rights of the States, 2) At present stage, it will be possible to make a regional convention flexible without prejudice to the sovereign right of the States or territorial issues; 3) taking into account that the region often faces many generic political problems that often inhibit the effective collective actions on environmental issues, the leadership from UNEP or other international organizations is required; 4) strong institutional and financial framework should be made, and 5) multilateral efforts to respond to the new marine environmental threats should be taken at the regional level in order to protect the coastal and marine environments in the Northwest Pacific.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2017.11a
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• pp.132-132
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• 2017

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.186-192
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• 2013

Because of the shallow depth of 44 m and large area of wetland in Korea and China, the class I productivity of Yellow Sea is very high (>300 $gC/m^2/year$), which is supporting substantial populations of fish, invertebrates, marine mammals and seabirds. However, the Yellow Sea is a large marine ecosystem which is enclosed by mainland of China and Korean peninsula, so it is vulnerable to external stress such as environmental degradation and overfishing. Recently, since the Fisheries Agreement between Korea and China, overfishing and illegal fishing of China and environmental degradation caused by coastal development in Korea and China have given much stress to the marine ecosystem of Yellow Sea. This article suggests that the major factors of governance are ineffectively responding to the growing demand for exploitation of the Yellow Sea and the international cooperation for establishing network of Yellow Sea governance is urgent.