The Northeast Asian ‘Provisional’ Maritime Regime(s): A Focus on Fisheries Agreements as ‘Provisional Arrangements of a Practical Nature’.

Abstract

This thesis deals with the topic of maritime boundary delimitation in Northeast Asia through the lens provided by the negotiation and implementation of 'provisional arrangements’, as the interim solution found in Arts. 74/83 of the LOSC. Although their immediate rationale is traced back to the need for a viable alternative to compulsory third-party dispute-settlement mechanisms, fostering the development of ocean resources through the temporary 'pooling of sovereignty' by claimant parties, this research contends that a solely 'zonal' interpretation thereof does not satisfactorily account for the duration and scope taken on by the arrangements hereby analysed, nor does it fully respond to a possible critique on the 'indeterminacy' of international law as realised through the creation of bilateral ad hoc régimes. Having considered the régime of ‘provisional arrangements’ from an additional ‘integrated management’ perspective, so as to give account to the partial departure from the LOSC-based model of sovereignty apportionment thereby accomplished, the doctrine of the 'international public domain' is finally relied on as an organisational theory applicable to ocean spaces as well. The ultimate objective is therefore to demonstrate how international law, while existing in a 'determinate' way, can be flexible enough to allow for the interactional engagement of State actors in the continuous (re)shaping of the domain wherein such disputes are to be accommodated.