The Marmot’s Hole

The Hankyoreh reports that a change made to the text of the KORUS FTA on June 30 that may refer to Korean sovereignty over Dokdo.

The problematic article is from Article 1.4 of Section B: General Definitions of Chapter 1 (taken from the final agreement following the June 30 amendments):

territory means:

(a) with respect to Korea, the land, maritime, and air space over which Korea exercises sovereignty, and those maritime areas, including the seabed and subsoil adjacent to and beyond the outer limit of the territorial seas over which it may exercise sovereign rights or jurisdiction in accordance with international law and its domestic law;

Now here is the original version prior to the amendment:

territory means:

(a) with respect to Korea, the land, maritime, and air space over which Korea exercises sovereignty, and those maritime areas, including the seabed and subsoil adjacent to and beyond the outer limit of the territorial sea over which it exercises sovereign rights or jurisdiction in accordance with international law and its domestic law;

Song Gi-ho, a trade attorney, told the Hankyoreh that Dokdo falls under “those maritime areas… adjacent to and beyond the outer limit of the territorial sea,” and that the change provides some wiggle room to recognize the exercise of sovereign rights depending on whether said sovereign rights are recognized by international law. He said the United States may have demanded this change out of consideration for its relationship with our neighbors across the East Sea, Japan.

Interestingly, the Hani points out, agreements concluded at roughly the same time with Peru, Panama and Columbia use the “exercises” rather than the “may exercise” language.

Hmmm….

An official with the Foreign Ministry said the United States has used the language “may exercise” to refer to sovereignty over the outer limits of territorial seas in all the agreements it has signed so far, and that it was a mistake to believe that Dokdo fell under those areas where Korea “may exercise” sovereign rights or jurisdiction. That is to say, Dokdo falls under the “land, maritime, and air space over which Korea exercises sovereignty,” and only the continental shelf and EEZ nearby falls under “those maritime areas, including the seabed and subsoil adjacent to and beyond the outer limit of the territorial seas over which it may exercise sovereign rights or jurisdiction.”

PRESSian, of course, also ran with this, and also mentioned that there is an article in the FTA that, basically, prevents the KORUS FTA from becoming an indirect route for Chinese companies to take over American ones.

If the Hankyoreh report is true and the agreements with Peru, Panama and Columbia do use the “exercises” language, I do find it odd that the United States would demand a change to the language of the Korean agreement only. I mean, there would have to be a reason, no?

UPDATE: It appears that for whatever reason, the Hankyoreh (and Naver.com) have taken down the piece.  The PRESSian piece is till up, though.