The South Sea Islands and Japanese Mandatory Rule over Them

KOBAYASHI Izumi (Oct 06, 2021)

As the Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory, Japan has jurisdiction over the territorial sea and EEZ pertaining to them. China also claims the islands, though, which superficially presents competing jurisdictional claims. In this paper, the legal specialist Miyoshi Masahiro examines aspects of the law governing Japan’s response to foreign governmental ships in its territorial sea and EEZ. He also explores the causes of the overlapping claims problem from an international law perspective.

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International Law and Japan's Territorial Disputes

Raul (Pete) Pedrozo (Feb 06, 2018)

Although Japan renounced its claims to these lands, the San Francisco Peace Treaty（SFPT）failed to declare a successor State. Thus, five of the highly contentious territorial disputes that plague Asia-Pacific today have their roots in the SFPT, three of which involve Japan—Kurile Islands/Northern Territories, Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo/Takeshima) and Pinnacle Islands (Diaoyu/Senkakus). Over the years, these disputes have intensified as a result of rising nationalism and a growing demand for living and non-living ocean resources. In particular, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which were designed to accommodate the interests of the developing States in exercising exclusive resource rights out to two hundred nautical miles (nm), have had the unintended consequence of intensifying resource competition and rekindling these longstanding territorial disputes.

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State of Affairs in the Pacific Island Region: Reading China’s Agenda and the Sentiments of Pacific Islanders

KOBAYASHI Izumi (Sep 18, 2023)

U.S. Recognition of Japanese Sovereignty Over the Senkaku Islands

Raul（Pete）Pedrozo (Sep 15, 2022)

The South Sea Islands and Japanese Mandatory Rule over Them

KOBAYASHI Izumi (Sep 15, 2022)

The Discovery of Islands and Pirates

SHIMADA Yukio (Sep 17, 2021)

Struggles for territory often underlie the history of mankind. Territorial disputes develop into wars, which end with the conclusion of peace treaties. With few exceptions, peace treaties include clauses of territory. As titles to acquire national territory, leading books of international law usually cite six methods: discovery, cession, annexation, prior occupation, conquest, and prescription. In fact, until the first half of the 16th century, scholars stood for discovery as a complete title to territory, but later it was believed that discovery was just an inchoate title and that this title needed to be completed by effective prior occupation within a reasonable time. It is said that in the Middle Ages, the size of feudal lords’ territory was determined according to their power. As years go by, such a way of thinking seemed to lay the foundation for overseas expansion in the Age of Exploration. “The discovery of America and that of the passage to East India via the Cape of Good Hope are two of the greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind.” This is the famous remark made by Adam Smith (1723-1790), and it would be safe to say that these two discoveries, in other words, the discovery of the American continents and that of the passage to India, led to the development of world history to the present day with Western Europe as its center. Why, then, are they called “discovery”? Discovery requires something unknown. It was the Europeans that they were unknown to, and they might not have been unknown to native Americans and Indians. Until the 15th century, the Europeans did not know regions other than Europe, nor did they show any interest therein. Formerly, this period was often called the “Age of Discovery,” but objections were raised to the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, and today, it is called not “discovery” but “encounter” and the “Age of Exploration.” Even in the 20th century, there are cases in which the acquisition of territory through discovery was mentioned in international arbitral awards, and therefore, discovery is not necessarily an issue of the past. This article sheds light on the act of discovering islands and examines what effects discovery had on the world in subsequent years with focus on the remarkable activities of pirates in particular.

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Marine Scientific Research by Third Countries over the Extended Continental Shelf

SHIMOYAMA Kenji (Mar 22, 2020)

The Benham Rise constitutes the greater part of the extended continental shelf of the Philippines. It has been pointed out since early on that there may be large deposits of oil and natural gas under the Benham Rise, and the waters over the Benham Rise also have abundant marine living resources. The Philippine government submitted information on the limits of the continental shelf to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in order to exercise its sovereign rights to the Benham Rise as well as the 200-nautical-mile conventional continental shelf. Following the recommendation of the CLCS, the Philippine government deposited charts and relevant information describing the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles with the Secretary-General of the United Nations in accordance with Article 76, paragraph 9. If it is assumed that the Chinese ship was carrying out marine scientific research on the Benham Rise, it follows that the research ship was on the high seas even if it was engaged in a survey of the extended continental shelf. Aren’t there fears that any problems arise from this situation under international law? The present paper examines this issue while analyzing discussions about this question.

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Creation of the New National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty - To build a place for thinking about Japan’s territories

TAKAHASHI Noritsugu (Sep 15, 2022)

Japan’s Island Territories and the Three Manners of Warfare

TAKAI Susumu (Sep 15, 2022)

The Positions of the United States and the United Kingdom regarding the Senkaku Islands at the time of the Okinawa Reversion

TAKAI Susumu (Sep 15, 2022)