Legal Approach to the Passage Issues of the Cheju Strait

제주해협 통항문제에 관한 법적 고찰

Considering possible legal and policy problems with regard to the Cheju Strait, a central issue is whether the Cheju Strait should be treated as Korean territorial sea or an international strait The claim that the strait is territorial sea has been based on the use of a straight baseline method of dermarcation With the use of straight baseline, Korea claims that the breadth of the Cheju Strait is only 20.7 miles at its narrowest point and therefore the strait becomes the territorial sea of Korea. The consideration cf marine pollution has weighed heavily in claiming the Cheju Strait as territorial sea. Pollution resulting from the accidents cf tankers caused by fire, collision, or stranding in the Cheju Strait and the Korea Strait would be enormous, affecting the entire coastal waters of the south coasts cf Korea's mainland and Japan's Tsushima Islands areas. Catastrophic pollution in the Cheju Strait could also come from the accidents cf large-size oil tankers passing through the Korea Strait from the Malacca Strait Although the Korean government considers the geographic and socioeconomic conditions sufficient to justify Korea's claim of the Cheju Strait as territorial sea, it believes that declaring it so would raise considerable legal conflicts with maritime states. In view of the legal difficulties and the need to meet the problems arising from the growing vessel traffic in the Cheju Strait, the sea lanes and traffic separation schemes may be considered an alternative to the internationalization of the Cheju Strait Even if the Korean government dose not do so, the regime of innocent passage should be applied to vessels passing through the Strait and should not suspend innocent passage through the Strait. Therefore, the Korean government needs to have a more legal, pragmatic, functional and managerial approach than a purely sovereign and selfish approach to the solution of legal matters of the Cheju strait For this purpose, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would serve as a guide and also self-restraint and cooperative approaches would become norms governing the resolution of the law of the sea issues in the Cheju Strait.

본 연구는 제주해협의 통항문제를 유엔해양법협약을 기초로 검토하여 제주해협의 국제법상 지위 및 이에 상응하는 통항제도를 구체적으로 제시하고자 한다. 이를 위하여 제주해협의 지리적 특성, 유엔해양법협약상의 통항제도, 제주해협의 통항문제 및 북한상선의 제주해협문제 등을 고찰한다.