ABSTRACT
This chapter describes Japan’s decision-making process on the Japan-Korea continental shelf joint development program — a topic of great importance to Japan. Mining rights are to be vested in Japanese citizens or in a Japanese juridical person, and no foreigners or foreign juridical persons are eligible to become mining concessionaires unless otherwise provided by treaty. Thus, at times joint management schemes with a Japanese juridical person and a foreign enterprise are established, or a joint development contract is set up to introduce foreign high-level technology. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also had to confront the global issues of the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, as well as the bilateral issue of the Japan-Korea continental shelf development. Adjusting for and minimizing friction between offshore petroleum development and fisheries in the surrounding waters is an especially serious problem for Japan.
