Japan has consistently complied with international law and walked the path of peace. Korea and China are insisting on their territorial claims to Takeshima and Senkaku Island without accurate facts pertaining to their respective situations and the observance of international law. These issues are not solely matters of interpretation of international law, but are closely integrated into the national strategies of these two countries. As Takeshima and Senkaku Island issues are extremely important matters of national sovereignty, Japan has to strengthen its overseas communications capability based on national strategy.
Selected Papers No.19

The ocean resource consists of fishery, sea-bottom mineral, and marine cultural ones; the main part of the third resource is underwater cultural heritage. Since the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage became effective in 2009, many countries have started tackling its themes such as training underwater archaeologists or building state-owned institutions. In Japan, contrariwise, neither governmental policy toward marine cultural resource nor national maritime museum exists. Given the circumstances, some matters concerning Japanese shipwrecks sunk during WWII develops into an international issue.

With the ever-increasing world population now exceeding 7 billion, urbanization proceeds apace, land and water are restricted, and climate variability has come to affect agriculture, leading to worries of a food crisis. As on-land food production nears its limits, awareness is spreading around the world that we should look to the sea in order to feed the next generation. However, fishery resources have come up against a wall and increased production is not expected. The promising food industry that can see us through this bottleneck is the farming of the sea, or aquaculture, which has seen steady growth since the 1980s.