International disputes over activities by States in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), such as the tension between Japan and China concerning seabed resource development in the vicinity of the East China Sea EEZ boundary and unreported marine research activities conducted by China within Japan's EEZ, are emerging across the globe today. Many still remember the collision between a US EP3 surveillance plane dispatched for surveillance activity and a Chinese jet fighter over China's EEZ off the coast of Hainan in 2001, the Japanese Coast Guard firing at and sinking of a North Korean spy vessel in the East China Sea in December of the same year and since this occurred within China's EEZ, the protest drawn from China. Many fear these unexpected incidents and the disputes they might bring.
The Guidelines for Navigation and Overflight in the Exclusive Economic Zone is needed to avoid such scenarios.
Here are a series of meetings on The Regime of the Exclusive Economic Zone: Issues and Responses held from 2003-2005 primarily by the Ocean Policy Research Foundation (OPRF). The Guidelines for Navigation and Overflight in the Exclusive Economic Zone were developed as a result of consensus among the participants

 

1st meeting February 19-20, 2003 Tokyo, Japan
2nd meeting December 9-10, 2003 Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
3rd meeting October 28-29, 2004 Shanghai, China
4th meeting September 15-16, 2005 Tokyo, Japan

See Guidelines for Navigation and Overflight in the Exclusive Economic Zone for details.