By Choi Yearn-hong

Ieodo is a very unique rock which has caused many shipwrecks, and is the source of Jeju literature for seafarers. The Korean Navy’s scientific investigation team and the Korea Mountain Climbing Team in 1951 first explored the rock.

Since then, the Korean ocean scientists mounted many exploratory expeditions. Finally, it became the underwater foundation for Korea’s ocean research station. It is the first of its kind: a Korean science project for ocean research.

No person or nation can challenge such an ocean science research tower under the current law of the sea.

Korea does not intend to draw its baseline from Ieodo to expand its EEZ or continental shelf.

To prevent future conflicts in the East China Sea and in any other small and narrow seas, I propose a new principle to be applicable in the law of the sea: rocks and uninhabitable islands must belong to the nearest human settlement, either coastal land or island.

The principle of contiguity ― proximity to a human settlement ― is a time-honored, commonsensical simple rule to resolve the conflict among nations.

This guarantees objectivity and mathematical precision to negate disputes based on endless claims.



The median line concept or equidistance has been a salient product of the international community. This proposal is not sophisticated at all. It has been the primary principle in dispute resolution.

Contiguity, proximity or closer distance between uninhabitable rocks and islands and their neighboring human settlements is the simplest method of resolving territorial disputes.

This method is not new. The equidistance method has proved significantly more popular as the basis for international maritime boundary agreement over time.

As geometrically exact expressions of the midline concept, equidistance lines offer objectivity, mathematical precision and, assuming agreements exist with regard to relevant baselines, a lack of ambiguity.

This is especially the case for delimitations between opposite coasts where equidistance-based solutions represent the dominant approach to an overwhelming degree.

Equidistance based delimitation lines provide 89 percent of delimited maritime boundaries with an opposite coastal relationship.

Inevitably, in the construction of equidistance lines, issues related to coastal geography become critical in the equation. However, Ieodo cannot generate any controversy because it is located in the vast sea without complex coastal geographical characters.

The findings of international courts and tribunals have proven that equidistance is the most acceptable, readily available tool.

The United Nations and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea also advocate peaceful resolution of disputes between and among nations in conflict on the equitable basis of fairness.

Unfortunately, fairness is not achievable between two conflicting nations. China attempts to use fairness with its long coastal line. That is the so-called equitable distribution.

Judicial and arbitral decision have endorsed the legal and practical value of the equidistance approach in all decisions. The majority of negotiated maritime boundaries have also utilized the equidistance approach.

The fact that 89 percent of the agreements between countries with opposite coasts applied the equidistance principle shows how deeply imbedded it is in practice, and supports Korea’s position on delimiting EEZs in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea.

To date, 162 nations have joined in the United Nations 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS III). However, the United States has not yet ratified it. It is uncertain as to what extent the convention codifies customary international law.

The disputes over marine interests and rights in many seas of the Earth involve basically two issues, EEZs and continental shelves.

One nation’s exclusive economic zone may overlap with another nation’s EEZ. Among coastal nations in a relatively small sea area such as the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea, continental shelves and EEZs are not the best means to demark the marine boundary line. Continental shelves for underwater mining of mineral resources may conflict with the EEZ concept of fishery.

The former is basically a geological concept extended into the sea and the latter is basically for the economic utilization of the coastal area. At the present time, there are so many pending sea territorial disputes between and among nations surrounding rocks, islets and islands in worldwide.

There is no consensual agreement on the sea boundary line between China and Korea in the East China Sea. China claims the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea as its own from the point of continental extension or natural prolongation.

China’s territorial ambition is not only on the land, but also at sea. Now, it claims virtually most of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea as its own insisting on the continental shelf theory and the International Court of Justice’s minor decision on the North Sea case to expand its sea territory as a natural prolongation from its landmass.

China protested construction of the ocean research tower on Ieodo in 1995.

After the construction in 2003, it has been quiet until 2007. Now, China claims that Ieodo is its own. Korea has the right to construct and operate the ocean research tower on Ieodo, because it was, and is, within Korea’s EEZ and closer to Marado than to any of China’s islet.

Here is my proposal to amend the existing Law of the Sea: the Law of the Sea Article 121 (3) should be changed into the following:

“Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own must belong to the land or island of human settlement, not artificial and manipulative human settlement.”

Setting up a new rule for reefs, shoals and underwater rocks will be an easier task, because they are no man’s land. The future will be dictated by changing science and technology. Rocks which have been worthless may be worthwhile in the future, and that they may cause more disputes. Then the existing Law of the Sea Article 121 (3) is going to be helpless to solve the problem. My proposal will be helpful in resolving the overlapping EEZs in narrow or small seas.

Ieodo will symbolize a new meaning of rocks in the sea for humankind, and will offer a valuable lesson for turning worthless natural formations into worthwhile ones in the future.

Dr. Choi Yearn-hong is a senior scholar at the Society of Ieodo Research.