대륙붕 한계의 변화와 법적 성질에 대한 고찰

A Study on the Transition of the Limits of the Continental Shelf and Its Legal Status

The continental shelf comprises the sea-bed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond the territorial sea through the natural prolongation of the land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the territorial sea is measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to that distance, according to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. Physically the sea-bed adjacent to a typical coast is usually considered to consist of three separate sections : the continental shelf proper averaging about 130 meters, the continental slope going down to around 1,200 to 3,500 meters, and the continental rise typically descends to a depth of around 3,500 to 5,500 meters. These three areas form the continental margin of the legal continental shelf in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. The doctrine of the continental shelf has been relegated at the Third Law of the Sea Conference to playing minor and auxiliary role of extending the exclusive rights of coastal States over the seabed, in a relatively few cases, to distances beyond the 200 miles of the EEZ. Then. As an autonomous institution of international law, its importance is likely to be ephemeral, but as the device which mediated between the freedom of the seas and coastal State sovereignty, its historical role has beeb fundamentally significant. Korea has accepted continental shelf since the legislation of 1970 Submarine Mineral Resources Development Act. However some critical issues relating to the continental shelf has yet to be settled such as its delimitation between neighboring States, fixing relationship with EEZ regime etc. In the circumstances, this essay outlines the history and the legal status of the continental shelf as a symbol of creeping jurisdiction.