Study On The Legal Settlement Of China And South Korea Fishery Disputes

Since China and South Korea are close neighbors, the fishery intercourse between the two countries has begun since ancient times. In 1982, the third United Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea passed United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which established a series of new systems related to ocean management in the form of International Law. Under the influence of the new marine system, China and South Korea have paid more attention to their own maritime rights and interests and the disputes centered upon these rights and interests also increase gradually.After China and South Korea established diplomatic relations, under the background of delimitation dispute of the opposite sea areas, the two countries signed China-Korea Fishery Agreement, a provisional legal instrument for maintaining the normal fishery order between the two countries. After China-Korea Fishery Agreement(hereinafter referred to as the agreement) took effect, the fishery conflicts between the two countries were not solved properly. On the contrary, they gradually escalated and sometimes even led to bloody incident with casualties, which to a great extent sharpened the civil contradictions and became a great obstacle to the stable development of the bilateral relations.The fishery disputes between China and South Korea seemingly are resulted from illegal fishing of Chinese fishermen cross the border. However, the fundamental reason lies in that the claims of the two countries of their exclusive economic zones have large difference and the maritime delimitation is hard to be settled after United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(hereinafter referred to as the Convention) came into effect. The essence of the fishery disputes between China and South Korea is the competition for maritime delimitation interests. Meanwhile, the fishery disputes have a great negative influence on our country and also hinder the good diplomatic relations of the two countries. Due to the limitation of the related legislations of the two countries and the evasion of the disputes in the agreement, it is hard to find a unified solution for the fishery disputes between China and South Korea in the current legal framework. The author holds that on the premise of fully respecting the regulations of international laws, the best approaches of a peaceful resolution of the fishery disputes are amending the fishery agreement and strengthening cooperation in fishery related legislations with the help of international judicial power. Meanwhile, China should also take active measures of improving the fishery legislations and strengthening administration and supervision proceeding from our national conditions, guiding fishermen to change the line of production and develop long range fishing.