Korea, Japan at crossroads over future of continental shelf development project

The green lines marked on the bottom right show the joint development zone for the continental shelf in the East China Sea, under a bilateral agreement signed between Korea and Japan. Courtesy of the Korea Maritime Institute

Korea and Japan are at a crossroads over the future of an agreement on jointly developing an underwater continental shelf as either side can formally declare its termination starting Sunday.

The Agreement on the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) was signed in 1974 to pursue the joint exploitation of the "Block 7" continental shelf in the East China Sea, based on geological analyses suggesting the continental shelf may hold significant reserves of oil, gas and other minerals.

The agreement took effect four years later on June 22, 1978, for a 50-year term, and starting exactly three years before its expiry, either country can declare its termination at the end of the term.

The two countries previously conducted joint exploration work on the continental shelf but failed to discover economically viable oil wells.

The project has since stalled, with Japan not designating additional exploration authorities.

Last September, the two sides resumed working-level talks on the agreement for the first time in 39 years but came away with no concrete measures.

There is speculation Japan could be reluctant about moving forward with the agreement after a new international treaty on maritime activities adopted criteria that favored Japan in determining continental shelf boundaries.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which came into force in 1994, recognized the jurisdiction of a continental shelf by distance, a concept that puts most of the JDZ area under Japan's exclusive economic zone.

Korean officials said Japan could hold off on announcing the agreement's termination considering the recent friendly atmosphere around the 60th anniversary this year of the normalization of bilateral ties.