South Korea has submitted an official claim to extend a portion of continental shelf beyond the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the East China Sea to a United Nations body, Seoul's foreign ministry said Thursday.
The South Korean government presented the official document to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) located in New York a day earlier (Seoul time), claiming that the Korean Peninsula's natural prolongation of the continental shelf in the East China Sea extends to the Okinawa Trough, the ministry said.
According to the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, coastal nations can claim an economic zone extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from their shores, and to do so, they are required to document the process of delineating their outer continental shelf and submit the information to the CLCS.
"After close consultation of ministries concerned and experts on marine science and international law, we've drawn the outer limit line for the trough by using the formula of placing the boundary 60 nautical miles beyond the foot of the slope within 350 nautical miles from the territorial sea in accordance with the U.N.
convention," foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said in a statement.
Under the convention, a coastal country may use one of the two formulas to determine the outer limit of its continental shelf:
placing the boundary along a line where the thickness of sediment on the seafloor is at least 1 percent of the distance to the foot of the slope (FOS), or 60 nautical miles beyond the FOS to maximize the extent of its continental shelf. The FOS is the point along the base of the slope where the gradient of the seafloor undergoes its maximum change.
The law also stipulates the outer limit shall not exceed 350 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.
"Compared to our 2009 preliminary report, it is extended up to
125 kilometers toward Japan, some 5 nautical miles away from the Japanese sea border," said a foreign ministry official in charge of the matter.
The size of the shelf claimed by Seoul in its official document has also more than doubled than the earlier version, he added.
China and Japan have separately claimed the Okinawa Trough, with part of Seoul's recent claim overlapping with China's.
Seoul and Beijing, however, share a largely similar stance in defining the limits while being in discord with Japan, which can renew a territorial spat among the neighboring countries.
The continental shelf in the East China Sea is believed to be rich in natural gas and oil deposits.
In general, the CLCS puts forth "recommendations" after a three-month non-regulated review of the information submitted by each country, which means its decision is not legally binding.
"The submission bears the significance of declaring our right to, and the principle about, the trough scientifically, technically and geographically to the international community," another foreign ministry official said.
"In case of disputes among countries involved, the CLCS is supposed to refrain from reviewing the case. So the final demarcation will be made through agreements by the three parties," he added.
Vowing to make sure the CLCS decides the matter through a smooth process, the South Korean government will "strive to maximize national interests" by actively seeking direct talks with neighboring countries for the final demarcation, according to the ministry. (Yonhap News)
