East Asia and International Tribunals: Not Gonna Happen

In another blow to international dispute resolution in East Asia, South Korea has partially withdrawn from the compulsory dispute settlement procedures of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which includes resort to the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or a special arbitration tribunal. The S. Korean withdrawal is not online (I don’t think) but it most likely resembles this one made by Australia in 2002.

South Korea is currently locked in a tense territorial sea dispute with Japan, dispatching its navy to surround disputed isles off the coast of both nations. Its confidence in its legal claims, or in international tribunals, however, is not very high. This action is similar to Australia’s limited withdrawal from jurisdiction of international courts related to its disputes with East Timor, and is more evidence that countries rarely submit to international dispute resolution if they really have something important at stake. At least that appears to be the pattern in East Asia.