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South Korea¡¯s Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo reportedly told his staff that he would abide by his convictions and protect the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea when he travels to Pyongyang next month for talks with his North Korean counterpart. He vowed he would never change his position and reportedly encouraged his staff by saying that he himself, and not a commissioned officer serving under him, would end up taking full responsibility if any part of talks over the NLL becomes a problem.
These are dignified words showing the proper attitude for the defense minister of South Korea. If the minister personally leads the way in abandoning the NLL, which countless numbers of soldiers braved fierce waves for decades to protect, often losing their lives against North Korean attacks in the process, then what soldier would bother to defend a cease-fire line? This is why Kim¡¯s comments are welcome. The reason why South Korea faces a serious situation is because abnormal circumstances and senselessness rule, making it difficult for officials to make reasonable comments and maintain such a position without risking their jobs.
The president sowed the seeds of the senselessness, saying on Oct. 11 the NLL was a one-sided decision and to see it as a border was ¡°misleading.¡± The comments deny that the NLL is a demarcation of our territory and show that it will be possible to begin the process of changing and abandoning the NLL. Just as confusion on the diplomatic front stems from the president¡¯s ¡°special knowledge¡± of diplomacy and as the disarray in our economy traces its source to the president¡¯s ¡°special knowledge¡± of the economy, chaos involving the NLL has been triggered by our president¡¯s ¡°special knowledge¡± of our Constitution and international law.
Article 3 of our Constitution says the Republic of Korea¡¯s sovereign territory is the Korean Peninsula and its affiliated islands. In principle, the ocean north of the NLL belongs to the Republic of Korea and the NLL is not a territorial boundary in a strict sense. The northern borders, according to the Constitution, are the Yalu and Tumen rivers.
But the North and South, while holding dialogue, are still technically at war and have become United Nations members as separate countries. In these circumstances, it is the general opinion of scholars that the North and South are effectively governing their own territories using the NLL on the West Sea and another maritime border in the East Sea. Judge Park Choon-ho of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea said North Korea should be viewed as having ¡°acquiesced¡± to the NLL, since it had not launched any provocation nor pointed out any discrepancies in the de-facto border before the Military Armistice Commission in 1973. Judge Park added that this situation has taken shape so that the NLL can be legally recognized as a maritime border between North and South. Based on this constitutional interpretation and majority consensus according to international law, the Defense Ministry, the agency in charge of the issue, has clarified its position that the NLL is indeed essentially a maritime border between North and South Korea. The defense minister even told the National Assembly that the NLL constitutes a territorial concept.
Article 66 of the Constitution puts on the president the duty of territorial preservation. That means he is not allowed to unilaterally hand over Mt. Baekdu to China and tolerate the Dokdo islets being claimed by Japan. Article 81 says any legal act by the president must be documented and the prime minister and related Cabinet members must endorse it. The same applies to military affairs, it says. Article 87 says Cabinet members assist the president in government. Those are all checks and balances preventing the president from unilaterally and arbitrarily exercising his power. But at present, the president turns a deaf ear to the voices of frontline government agencies and sows confusion over our sovereign territory by stubbornly insisting on his own ¡°special¡± interpretation of the Constitution and international law.
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