hankyoreh

A parliamentary report showed South Korea was lagging far behind Japan in diplomacy for the standardization of the geographical name surrounding Dokdo, a group of South Korean islets off the country’s east coast.


In the July 31 report titled, “The Issue of Dokdo’s Geographical Name and International Naming Standard Countermeasures,” the National Assembly’s bureau of legislative research said, “Although South Korea’s National Geographic Information Institute offers geographic name usage services like Japan, links with foreign agencies are insufficient.” The report compared activities of South Korea and Japan at the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN).

According to the report, the Japanese government submitted and registered a guideline of its geographical names to the UNGEGN in both 1987 and 1994. Japan also published an English-language book on its geographical names. However, the South Korean government didn’t formally submit and register a Romanization guideline of its geographical names to the U.N. agency. While the Web site of Japan’s national geographic institute is linked to the UNGEGN site to provide search service for geographical names in Japan, no South Korean agency was linked to the site of the U.N. agency.

“A decision of internationally-valid geographical names is very political and sensitive, but South Korea is losing its influence from international society because of a lack of awareness and interest,” the parliamentary report pointed out. The National Assembly’s bureau of legislative research advised the government to figure out the decision-making process and status of naming agencies in major countries and international organizations. In addition, the parliamentary research body proposed that the government should actively participate into the UNGEGN with financial support and send experts to naming agencies in the United States, Britain, the European Union and international organizations, which wield big influence on the issues of geographical names.

The UNGEGN was set up in 1958 to coordinate countries for the international standardization of geographical names. Among Asian nations, Japan is the most active player in the U.S. agency, while South Korea participated into the UNGEGN meeting for the first time in 2002.

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