[Column] Recasting the Northern Limit Line

Posted on : 2007-08-28 14:22 KST Modified on : 2007-08-28 14:22 KST

Seo Ju-seok, Korea Institute for Defense Analysis research committee member and former Blue House security adviser

There is growing controversy about the Unification Minister’s recent comments about and the character of the Northern Limit Line. The minister said it is a “security concept” and not a “territorial one,” and he is being dealt a scolding by members of the National Assembly and the media for both allegedly expressing his readiness to give up the NLL at the upcoming inter-Korean summit and his willingness to talk about redrawing the maritime line of demarcation.

Is the NLL really a territorial concept? If it is, it means that the NLL is our territorial limit, the line that marks our territorial waters, but is that really the case? After two sea battles, especially the West Sea Battle of 2002, in which precious young lives were lost defending the demarcation, the widely-held view among the South Korean public has indeed come to be that it is the South’s maritime border. If, however, this view is to be universally sound, it needs to be backed up with an objective examination of the facts.

Article 3 of the Constitution states: “The territory of the Republic of Korea shall consist of the Korean peninsula and its adjacent islands.” Therefore all of the water near Korean land on both sides of the NLL is also the territory of the Republic of Korea, so saying that the NLL is the Republic of Korea’s maritime border is unconstitutional. [Translator's note: The Republic of Korea’s constitution defines the whole Korean peninsula as its territory and does not define itself (“South Korea”) as territorially separate from the North. North Korea is, according to South Korea's constitution, part of the Republic of Korea, the South Korean state. It is for this reason that North Korean defectors are automatically granted South Korean citizenship.] The Korean War armistice of 1953 defines only the Demilitarized Zone on land and makes no separate stipulation for a sea demarcation. As is well known, it was the American commander of United Nations forces who drew up the NLL after the cessation of hostilities following the armistice, so if the NLL is our border, it means that Korean territory was also determined by the UN commander. If the NLL was our territorial border we would also have to call the DMZ an international border, and no one [in North or South Korea] ever makes such a claim.

The reason they did not draw a line in the water at the time of the armistice was because the United Nations and the Communist forces of North Korea and China negotiating at Panmunjom during 1952 were unable to decide anything. The United Nations had overwhelming naval power and wanted to be able to keep the pressure on the North well after the armistice, so called for waters of 3 nautical miles. Communist forces wanted more room to maneuver in and suggested 12 nautical miles. Meetings to discuss this went on for days but got nowhere, so eventually they decided against making any such definitions.

It was in 1955 when the North Korean cabinet decided it would claim the right to waters extending 12 nautical miles, this after the U.N. commander established the NLL. In 1977, South Korea promulgated its “territorial waters law,” which among other things claimed the same maritime space of 12 nautical miles. It draws a straight baseline from Deokjeok Island to Soryeong Island, and, legally speaking, the North’s maritime baseline is the low-water line between the mainland and the islands. If you connect the “Five West Sea Islands” of South Korea with a straight baseline you get an area of 40 nautical miles between Socheong and Yeonpyeong islands, which presents a problem in terms of international law. It also goes against Article 7, Section 6, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which says that a “system of straight baselines may not be applied by a State in such a manner as to cut off the territorial sea of another State from the high seas or an exclusive economic zone.”

Given the controversy at the time of the armistice negotiations, the current claim by North Korea that the waters in question are all its territorial waters is also a problem, but it is still problematic for the South to be calling it a territorial line. The NLL is already the essential maritime demarcation line and also the maritime DMZ between North and South Korea. The reason there are not daily clashes, even though there are occasional outbreaks of tension, is because both sides recognize this and behave accordingly.

In the Basic Agreement of 1992 between North and South Korea, both sides agreed that they would abide by the waters over which they have exercised jurisdiction so far, until a maritime line of nonaggression can be established. The claims of each side are so different that establishing a maritime nonaggression line will never be easy, but it will be possible to maintain the status quo on the existing zones. Instead of reckless discussion about reestablishing the line of demarcation at the upcoming summit or follow-up talks, I would hope that the focus would be on a mutual effort to recast these dangerous waters as a “sea of peace.”

Most viewed articles