Evaluation and Future Tasks of the Korea-China Fisheries Agreement

한.중어업협정의 평가 및 향후과제

Fisheries Agreements among Korea, China, and Japan, for the effective management of fisheries resources and protection of fisheries disputes, have been processed in a manner to conclude interim arrangements those are effective prior to the final demarcation of the maritime delimitation which often requires much time to settle among the relevant states, Based on this understanding, Korea, China, and Japan, had proceeded their mutual fisheries agreement ; and, two fisheries agreements, between Korea-Japan and China-Japan, have already entered into force on 22 January 1999 and on 1 June 2000, respectively. Lastly fisheries negotiation between Korea and China has been concluded in order to make it effective on 30 June 2001. As Korean fisheries have already experienced the impacts after the entry into force of Korea-Japan Fisheries Agreement, it is inevitable that the likewise will also be true for the Korea-china Fisheries Agreement. The results of fisheries negotiation should minimize the loss by ensuring Korean flagged vessels' fishing rights to the maximum level in the counterpart's waters, and to maximize our counterpart's loss by restricting its vessels' fishing rights to the minimum level in our waters. However, such goals are almost unreachable in an intergovernmental negotiation. On this ground, regardless of the results, the negotiation is highly criticized from all the interested realms of the society. First, this study reviews the negotiation process ana subject matters of the fisheries agreement, and then evaluates the disputed items issued by academic, political, and industry areas in an international law and fisheries perspective. After the entry into farce of fisheries agreement, various activities should be accommodated as future tasks, such as the adjustments of the domestic fisheries structure, the reorganization of the resource management based fisheries structure, the construction of EEz large surveillance system, and the construction of the multilateral fisheries cooperation system Through an earlier implementation of those tasks, the Korean fisheries will be better prepared in minimizing the predicted impacts once the Korea-China Fisheries Agreement becomes effective.