How to Grow Your Own Island

Japan is at it again. As I’ve noted before, Japan has devoted lots of attention to Okinotorishima, a bunch of rocks about the size of a king-sized bed. If it is an island, Japan has a much, much larger exclusive economic zone (where it can assert certain fishing and undersea development rights). China is not buying this view, and for good reason.

The problem for Japan is Article 121 of Part VIII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: “Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.”

Japan has assigned Okinotorishima a Tokyo address, but, according to the Times of London, Japan’s latest solution is a testament to Japanese ingenuity – and their obsession with expanding their exclusive economic zone. Japan is planning to grow coral on the rocks/islands (actually, they will grown the coral in Japan, and then move it back to Okinotorishima) and “grow” the island.

As I’ve noted (probably a little too often for many of our readers), many countries are engaged in a scramble to delimit maritime boundaries and continental shelf spaces under the U.N. Convention for the Law of the Sea. The Trinidad & Tobago- Barbados arbitration is only one of many such lingering disputes throughout the world. Japan’s new solution may launch a whole new method of expanding your EEZ – grow your own island.