Dr Jeehyun Choi

Institution: Jeju National University

Period of stay: 4 March 2024 - 28 February 2025

Contact: 21cjoshua@hanmail.net

https://lawschool.jejunu.ac.kr/lawschool/professor/professorinfo.htm

Profile: 

Dr Choi Jeehyun is an Assistant Professor in the Law School, Jeju National University PhD International Law at the Korea University. Korea University (Graduate), Korea University (Undergraduate). He was awarded the Junior Scholar of the Korean Society of International Law in 2011. He worked as the Assistant Research Fellow in the Korea Maritime Institute from 2011 to 2020. And he joined Law School, Jeju National University, since September 2020.He is now the Assistant Professor in the Law School, Jeju National University.

His PhD theme is to scrutinize the operational and systemic problems of the Provisional Measures of the ICJ. He is doing his research in the law of the sea and the dispute settlement system. He is specialized in the law of the sea and its related maritime policy of South Korea. He wrote some articles about continental shelf, deep seabed, island regime, analysis of some jurisprudences in several international tribunals and courts regarding maritime disputes in Korean and English. And he also has his specialty in ICJ procedures and ITLOS procedures. He wrote several Articles about international judicial proceedings, for example the Counterclaims, the forum prorogatum, the relations between the ICJ and Security Council, and etc.

Research Area:

Law of the Sea

Research Title:

Maritime Peace Building through a Peace Treaty

Research Outline:

Peace treaties are essential legal tools for the recovery of peace after armed conflict and war. Recently maritime issues have become crucial to judge the success or failure of a peace treaty and its implementation, all over the world. After World War II, the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty established the legal order for East Asian security and identity. But its obscure regulation of maritime sovereignty leads to the sovereignty disputes in this region including Senkaku/Diaoyu dao, Paracel islands and Sprately islands in the South China Sea, Northern territory disputes, and Dokdo/Takeshima disputes. Due to US-China power struggles or a surrogate conflict in this region, East Asia is now experiencing the world's deepest tension in the Taiwan Strait and Korean peninsula. Even after several decades of the successful management of the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, it is now facing the greatest challenge from maritime affairs.

After the conclusion of the UNCLOS, coastal States have come to have vast marine areas than in the previous days. It has made maritime dispute solution as well as land territory and boundary solution crucial for peace process success. It is evidenced from the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty and the 1997 Belfast Agreement. In these cases, maritime issues were crucial for peace building: Freedom of transit passage of Israel vessels in the Tiran Strait in the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, Maritime delimitation in the Gulf of Aqaba and peace park in the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty, and cooperation in managing the overlapping maritime areas in the 1997 Belfast Agreement and its implementation process. So nowadays the peace building process is highly dependent on the maritime issues.

The study aims to outline the significance of maritime affairs in the peace process, and the changes in the law of the sea and the peace treaties as a whole. In traditional international law, peace treaties only addressed land issues. But in the modern era, peace treaties regulated maritime issues. And with the end of World War I and World War II, the decision on small islands' sovereignty was among the main negotiation subjects. Due to the advent of Article 121 of the UNCLOS and development of the law of the sea, decisions taken by the former peace treaty became a source of turmoil. Those factors show the importance of the maritime issues in the peace process under modern international law.

Publications:

- “Marine Environment Contingency Planning in Korea” in Anastasia and et. al (eds.) Marine Pollution Contingency Planning (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2017) <Co-author with Seok-woo Lee>
- “Arctic Ocean Fisheries and Korea” in Myron H. Nordquist and et. al. (eds.) International Marine Economy (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2017)
- “Korea-Japan JDZ to End in Deadlock? : The Potential for Unilateral Korean Exploration and Exploitation” Ocean Development and International Law, Vol. 51, Issue 2 (2020)
- “Korea-Japan JDZ to End in Deadlock? : The Potential for Unilateral Korean Exploration and Exploitation” Ocean Development and International Law, Vol. 51, Issue 2 (2020)
- “Trans-boundary water management during the peace process in Korean peninsula: Solution finding from previous precedents” Marine Policy, Vol. 160 (2024)

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