South Korea will seek to expand the area of the continental shelf over which it enjoys sovereignty by over 19,000 square kilometers (7,422 sq-mi) by a letter to be sent later this month to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS).
The area is immediately south of the island of Jeju which lies about 120 miles south of the southwestern tip of S. Korea. The shelf stretches about 200 nautical miles from Jeju Island toward the Japanese islands of Okinawa. It’s total area is about a fifth of S. Korea’s land mass.
“The Korean government’s position is that the continental shelf is a natural extension of the peninsula,” a high-level diplomatic source in Seoul told Chosun Ilbo Wednesday. “Korea will soon submit geological, scientific and legal data proving this to the CLCS.”
The UN Law of the Sea requires nations wishing to claim that their continental shelf extends beyond their nation’s 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone to submit information supporting the claim to the CLCS.
Korea’s claim will seek to extend its continental shelf to portions of the Okinawa Trough in the East China Sea, an area that both China and Japan have also claimed as parts of their natural continental shelf extension.
Currently the waters above the claimed shelf area are being developed jointly by S. Korea and Japan under a 1974 agreement. S. Korea began researching the claim in 1999. In 2009 it submitted preliminary data to the CLCS in support of its upcoming claim.
