Geo Future Project: Protect the Ocean

Legal and Policy Frameworks and Action Plan for the Maintenance of Peace and Environment Protection of the Ocean

　

November 8〜9, 2002

　

Conference Hall, 10th Floor, Kaiyo Senpaku Building, 15-16, Toranomon 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo

　

Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation

　

It may be no exaggeration to say that the prosperity of human society is brought about by the advancement of the sea-lanes. On the other hand, the breakdown of the sea-lanes recurs during armed conflicts between nations. Protecting the sea-lanes still holds as the greatest security challenge. Though the probability of the breakdown of the sea-lanes taking place is going down due to naval strength, covert acts of aggression and subversive activities caused by governments or other major groups that support terrorism have appeared as new threats to block the sea-lanes. Along with the progress of the global economy, the network of sea-lanes is just becoming an international community property. The borderlessness of maritime freight activities and maritime crimes requires the building of maritime security to curb and eliminate these new threats.

The ups and downs of the international situation, on another front, are supposed to clear the way to the ocean for every state and major group. The deepening relationship of mankind to the ocean ends up taking environment-related issues attached to the development and utilization of resources, and environmental concerns accompanying shipping, combined with coastal water pollution due to coastal development and industrialization. Consequently causing the depletion of marine biomass and ecocide. The ocean is the source of life and the mechanisms of the global environment that nurtures it. When development and utilization advance, in some cases, environmental issues are neglected. But, in a period when the deterioration of the environment puts lives at risk, if there are calls for human security, marine environment protection has to be recognized as an issue of maritime security in a broad description to protect the ocean, which is the basis for life-support.

The two new major concerns described above raise another new problem, which takes place between interdisciplinary and international efforts, and state sovereignty or jurisdiction. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea imposes on all governments and major groups the duty of ocean management for the peaceful settlement of the disputes with marine resources and environmental conservation along with recognizing the setting of jurisdictional waters in coastal States. Sovereign rights and jurisdiction as defined by the Law of the Sea, in some cases only serve national interest, which trigger serious conflicts among neighboring coastal States or between the user State and coastal State undermining the maritime security environment.

Realizing the necessity of academic, interdisciplinary and international efforts to deal with these three major themes and the need to place these as new maritime security issues, the SOF Institute for Ocean Policy will hold an international conference on the "Geo Future Project: Protect the Ocean" with the support of The Nippon Foundation.

　

Institute for Ocean Policy, SOF (Ship & Ocean Foundation)

　

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Government of Japan

Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan

Japan Defense Agency

Japan Coast Guard

The Nippon Foundation

　

Tadao Kuribayashi

Professor, Toyo Eiwa University / Professor Emeritus, Keio University

Masahiro Akiyama

Chairman, Ship & Ocean Foundation

Hiroshi Terashima

Executive Director, Institute for Ocean Policy, Ship & Ocean Foundation

Kazumine Akimoto

Counselor, Institute for Ocean Policy, Ship & Ocean Foundation

　

Institute for Ocean Policy, SOF (Ship & Ocean Foundation)

15-16,Tranomon 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan

TEL: 81-3-3502-1828 FAX: 81-3-3502-2033

E-mail:info@sof.or.jp http://www.sof.or.jp

Hiroshi Tamama Tatsuya Sendo Catherine Lee Vivar