Prepared for the IIPS Symposium onJapan’s Position as a Maritime Nation
16 – 17 October 2007
TokyoSession 2
Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Enacting the Basic Ocean Law—the Process and the Background

Masahiro Akiyama
Ocean Policy Research Foundation

Prepared for the IIPS Symposium onJapan’s Position as a Maritime Nation
16 – 17 October 2007
TokyoSession 2
Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Enacting the Basic Ocean Law—the Process and the Background

Masahiro Akiyama
Ocean Policy Research Foundation

Enacting the Basic Ocean Law—the Process and the Background1

For the symposium “Japan’s Position as a Maritime Nation”
By Masahiro Akiyama
Chairman of the Ocean Policy Research Foundation
16 October 2007
1 Enacting the Basic Ocean Law
In April 2007, Japan enacted its first ever Basic Ocean Law, which then came into effect inJuly. Although this was a members’ bill, it received backing in the Diet not only from thegoverning Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and New Komeito, but also from the main
opposition parties—the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Japanese Communist Party, and
the People’s New Party—and it was passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses.
What is the Basic Ocean Law? Its objectives are outlined in the first article of the law, as
follows: “The ocean is essential in sustaining human life. In recognition of the importance of
seeking accord on the development and use of the oceans and on conservation of the ocean
environment through international collaboration based on the UN Convention on the Law of
the Sea and international initiatives such as the Rio Earth Summit, the Basic Ocean Law
prescribes fundamental principles, specifies the responsibilities of the national government,
local authorities, businesses, and the public, formulates a Basic Plan for the Ocean, andidentifies issues to serve as a basis for other policy measures concerning the ocean. It also
provides for the creation of a Headquarters for Comprehensive Ocean Policy within thecabinet to promote ocean policy measures in a comprehensive and systematic manner. In thisway, Japan aims to attempt to bring about the healthy development of economic society, toattempt to improve the stability of people’s lives, and to make a contribution to coexistence
between mankind and the oceans.”
As is common knowledge, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
introduced a maritime system encompassing territorial waters of 12 nautical miles, exclusive
economic zones of 200 nautical miles, and the new concept of the continental shelf.
Based on the Basic Ocean Law, the cabinet’s Headquarters for Ocean Policy, headed by theprime minister, has already held its first meeting. An expanded body, consisting of theHeadquarters for Ocean Policy supplemented by a group of councilors made up of private
citizens, is to hold its first meeting this week, on 18 October. The speaker has been appointed
a member of this group. The law creates the new position of Ocean Policy Minister, and it has
been announced that Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation Tetsuzo Fuyushiba
will assume this post.
For Japan, taking on the problems of the oceans was a key issue that brooked no delay.
However, the reason why the fully fledged Basic Ocean Law, consisting of 38 articles, wasenacted as a members’ bill is that, in simple terms, it was not possible for the government toenact it (that is, it could not come to fruition in the form of a government-proposed law
approved by the cabinet), since the management of maritime issues, which must be addressedin a comprehensive and systematic fashion, and the management of maritime policy is divided
up between eight different government ministries and agencies. Moreover, the activities ofprivate organizations exerted a significant influence on the process by which this members’
bill was drafted. As will be described in this presentation, this process of enacting the Basic
Ocean Law is of vital significance to the debate over maritime issues and deliberation overmaritime policy in Japan.

22 Opinions Offered by the Public and Inauguration of the Basic Ocean Law Study GroupThe process of drafting this legislation was directly influenced by the Basic Ocean Law StudyGroup, a combined government, public-sector, and private-sector body founded in April 2006.
The Basic Ocean Law Study Group was a non-partisan study group that included Diet
members from the LDP, New Komeito, and the DPJ, and which boasted former member ofthe House of Councilors Keizo Takemi as caretaker representative and Shigeru Ishiba, thecurrent minister of defense, as chairman. The group also included academic experts involvedwith maritime issues, representing the private sector, and government officials. Discussioncommenced in April, and in December general principles for maritime policy and the outlineof a basic ocean law were adopted and published.
The requisite background to the enactment of the Basic Ocean Law in terms of these generalprinciples for maritime policy may be summarized as follows.
“While recent years have seen growing antagonism between states over the enclosing ofareas of the ocean, progressive over-fishing of resources, and intensifying environmental
problems, the oceans play a hugely important role in guaranteeing the water, food, naturalresources, and energy required by a growing global population as well as its importance intransportation. It was against this backdrop that UNCLOS was concluded. While theconvention adhered to freedom of navigation, it granted sovereign rights and jurisdiction tocoastal nations, at the same time imposing on them obligations with regard to environmental
protection. The Rio Earth Summit adopted Agenda 21, an action program that touted
sustainable development and required that coastal nations engage in integrated management ofoceans beset by mutually inter-related problems.
Japan has thus far derived various benefits from the ocean, and protected by the ocean, it has
succeeded in developing as a state.
In terms of the exclusive economic zones established by UNCLOS, Japan boasts the sixth
most extensive waters in the world. However, development of policy and infrastructure for theintegrated management of the ocean has not advanced—ocean issues are being dealt with bydividing them up between different departments according to function, just as has always been
the case, and ocean issues are not being resolved. This is causing major delays in thedemarcation of territorial waters, the development and use of natural resources, and protectionof the environment. There has likewise been virtually no progress on the legal structure for thepreservation of maritime security and order. It would be no exaggeration to say that Japan is
the most laggardly maritime state of all, in terms of international action based on internationalcooperation.
To cope with these conditions, Japan must develop a new system for dealing with oceanissues and develop a comprehensive and integrated maritime policy. To this end, the mostpressing issue has been the enactment of a Basic Ocean Law.”
In fact, in 2005 the Nippon Foundation (chaired by Yohei Sasakawa) and the Ocean Policy
Research Foundation (chaired by Masahiro Akiyama) published “Japan and the Oceans—
Recommendations for Maritime Policy in the Twenty-First Century,” based on the work of theBasic Ocean Law Study Group. These recommendations emphasized the need for a basic
ocean law, and in substance it essentially constituted a prototype of the current Basic OceanLaw. These recommendations immediately caught on within the government and the LDP,
and motivated the LDP to enact the Basic Ocean Law. Hidenao Nakagawa, then-chairman ofthe LDP’s Policy Research Council, handed these recommendations down to Keizo Takemi,
member of the House of Councilors; a Select Committee on Maritime Policy, chaired by
Shigeru Ishiba, was set up within the LDP; and externally the Basic Ocean Law Study Groupwas established. The study group was a non-partisan body, and New Komeito and the DPJ
also engaged constructively in the enactment of the Basic Ocean Law.
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3 Oil and Gas Resource Development on the Continental Shelf in the East China Sea
The background to why the ruling LDP and New Komeito, as well as the DPJ, the major
opposition party, were all so responsive to the recommendations of a private organization is asfollows.
The landing by Chinese activists on the Senkaku Islands in March 2003 led the LDP to form
the Select Committee on Maritime Rights, and the protection of Japan’s maritime rights in theform of its territories, territorial waters, and exclusive economic zones became a major
political issue. Since 2004, China’s active expansion of its oil and gas development efforts on
the continental shelf in the East China Sea in the vicinity of the intermediate line between
China and Japan has been a problem. China has also frequently attempted to conduct
oceanographic surveys unannounced in Japan’s extensive exclusive economic zones in thewestern Pacific, and has asserted that the Okinotorishima Islands do not constitute part ofJapan’s coastline and thus are not a point of reference for a Japanese exclusive economic zone.
At the same time there have also been many incidences in the area around Takeshima islandand in the area around the Northern Territories in which Japan’s sovereignty and jurisdiction
have been ignored. Although Japan is a nation that has never really expressed strong concerns
over maritime rights, this string of incidents has caused Japan to turn its attention to theserights and other maritime issues. With the formation of its Select Committee on Maritime
Rights, the LDP has responded strongly to these incidents, in addition to which the DPJ, themajor opposition party, has also swung into action over the protection of Japan’s maritime
rights. For its part, the DPJ submitted a member’s bill to the Diet for the development of
natural resources on the seabed and another to promote resource exploration and scientificsurveys in exclusive economic zones.
At the instigation of the LDP, New Komeito has undertaken to submit a “secure waters” billto the Diet aimed at countering China’s oil and gas development, and has at the same timeasserted the importance of developing domestic laws to accommodate UNCLOS. In this way,
New Komeito demonstrated a positive response towards the proposed enactment of the BasicOcean Law.
The national press has begun to focus on maritime issues as a topic of profound interest.
With newspaper organizations having handled ocean issues in a disjointed fashion and provenincapable of reporting on them accurately, some national newspapers have established special
multi-disciplinary teams and developed specific reporting programs for ocean strategy
planning. When the Basic Ocean Law Study Group published its general principles formaritime policy and its outline of a basic ocean law, there was extensive press coverageregarding the possibility of enacting such a law, and the press played a major role in shaping
public opinion.
In addition, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport—newly formed in the majoradministrative reforms of 2001 through the amalgamation of the old Ministry of Construction,
Ministry of Transport, National Land Agency, and Hokkaido Development Agency—enjoys
wide-ranging responsibility for maritime administration and took great interest in the Basic
Ocean Law, exhibiting a desire to see it passed and the Headquarters for Comprehensive
Ocean Policy established. As a result, the minister of land, infrastructure and transportation
has been appointed to the additional post of ocean policy minister.

44 The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a Paradigm Shift in Maritime Affairs
Given this background, maritime issues—in particular the protection of Japan’s maritime
rights—have become a major political issue. Why, however, has Japan opted for acomprehensive response in the form of the Basic Ocean Law, instead of responding toproblems such as ocean resource development, disputes with China, and oceanographic
surveys individually?
In fact, these maritime issues that had begun to draw the attention of the nation were
essentially issues that were closely related to the legal framework of UNCLOS. Oil and gas
development on the continental shelf in the East China Sea is bound up with the issues of thedemarcation of the exclusive economic zones and the continental shelf that were introduced
by UNCLOS. Likewise, the issue of the Okinotorishima Islands relates in reality to the way inwhich UNCLOS is interpreted. Regarding oceanographic surveys (as in the case of the issue
over the area around Takeshima island), under the convention surveys are handled differently
according to their nature—that is, depending on whether they are scientific surveys, natural
resource development surveys, or military surveys. In line with UNCLOS, the Rio Summit’s
Agenda 21, which is heavily stressed within the international community, strongly advocatesthe sustainable development and use of the oceans. The preservation of the ocean environment
and the regulation of the development and use of the oceans are major topics of Agenda 21,and Agenda 21 also relates to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The way forward
for the fishing industry is also closely related to this latter convention. In recent years thesetypes of maritime environment issues, such as the bleaching and decrease of coral, theproblem of rubbish on seashores, the massive proliferation of echizen jellyfish, andmeteorological fluctuations have grabbed Japan’s attention.
There has been various coverage relating to the preservation of maritime security and order.
Chinese submarine incursions into Japan’s territorial waters; attacks by pirates and the rise of
terrorism at sea that threatens the security of the sea lanes, which are fundamental to Japan’s
existence as a state;, military surveys by other nations in Japan’s exclusive economic zones;
and the occurrence of large-scale natural disasters in the oceans have stoked major fears
among the Japanese people.
The various issues relating to the oceans, as described above, are in reality closely bound up
with one another. Accordingly, the necessity for comprehensive and integrated managementof the oceans is clearly stated in both the preamble to UNCLOS and in Agenda 21. This isprecisely why the development of a comprehensive ocean policy is required.
For long periods of history, it was possible to use the oceans freely—in other words, there
was “freedom of the seas.” Maritime states made free use of the oceans for fishing and otheractivities. However, after the end of World War Two, there was a shift to “management of theseas,” with the expansion of territorial waters, the appropriation of natural resources on thecontinental shelf, the establishment of exclusive fishing grounds, and the introduction ofexclusive economic zones. At present, 40 percent of the world’s seas are under the jurisdictionof one coastal nation or another. For a long time Japan’s strategy was to continue to insist on
broad international waters and limited territorial waters; unfortunately, however, it proved
unable to adapt to the global trend and the paradigm shift in maritime affairs. UNCLOS cameinto effect in 1994 and was ratified by Japan two years later. However, in the intervening
period Japan has thus far failed to tackle maritime issues adequately.
These conditions are probably a major reason for the sudden turnaround and enactment of abasic ocean law to deal with the various maritime issues of which the nation is now keenlyaware, as recommended by a public organization.

55 Future Development of Maritime Policy
The Basic Ocean Law requires the government to formulate a Basic Plan for the Ocean. The
immediate issue is that while the Headquarters for Comprehensive Ocean Policy will
formulate this basic plan, the fundamental principles for dealing with these maritime issues
are determined by the basic law. There are six fundamental principles as follows.
Coordination of the development and use of the ocean with preservation of the ocean
environment
Securing safety on the ocean
Improvement of scientific knowledge regarding the ocean
Improvement of the health of maritime industries
Management of the ocean in a comprehensive fashion
International cooperation with regard to the ocean
In terms of substance, the basic law also enumerates 12 articles that spell out basic measures.
The law thus elucidates specific measures based on the six principles, thereby determining theBasic Plan for the Ocean. It is understood that this work is scheduled to proceed on thepremise that the plan will be defined by the beginning of next year. In addition to thepresentation of policy, changes to the law and new legislative work will probably be necessary.
The development of organizations for building a system for comprehensive management of
the ocean is again likely to become a major issue.
Japan has only just begun to develop a comprehensive maritime policy. The Basic Ocean
Law that has been enacted and the accompanying framework enshrines coexistence between
mankind and the ocean, and currently ranks among the best in the world. However, the key
issue is whether Japan as a newly emerging maritime nation can put its heart and soul into thisframework.

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