Two Japanese documents that have been uncovered reveal that Tokyo, which has long insisted on a territorial claim to Korea’s Dokdo islets, in fact acknowledged Seoul’s ownership of the territory. The state-owned Korea Maritime Institute discovered that a Japanese document titled "prime ministerial ordinance No. 24," issued on June 6, 1951, and another, “financial ministerial ordinance No. 4,” issued on Dec. 13, 1951, clearly state that Dokdo, along with Ulleung and Jeju islands are excluded from Japan’s territory.

Tokyo has been insisting on its sovereignty over Dokdo, claiming that in the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and the Allied powers, Dokdo was not clearly mentioned in the territories Japan relinquished. But the General Headquarters of the Allies, which gained control over Japan following World War II, clearly stated Dokdo as part of Korean territory in a directive labeled Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Instruction Notes (SCAPIN) No. 677 issued in January 1946, while SCAPIN No. 1033, issued in June 1946, prohibits Japanese vessels of approaching within 12 nautical miles of Dokdo.

Tokyo claims those directives were unilateral measures by the Allies, but it is now clear that Japan had in fact created laws stipulating that Dokdo was not part of its territory. Moreover, despite revisions made to the two ordinances during the 1960s, the parts regarding the territory remain unchanged until today. Thus it can only be deduced that the two ordinances are still in effect in Japan, which does not have territorial provisions in its Constitution or legal codes.

The discoveries, which could put an end to the dispute over Dokdo between Korea and Japan, were the result of the tenacity and sense of duty of a lawyer and a researcher. Choi Bong-tae, an attorney who has devoted his efforts to helping women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II, won a lawsuit against the Japanese government, demanding Tokyo reveal documents involving the Korean-Japanese Conference. Following his court victory, Choi went through the 60,000 pages of documents he received from Japan’s Foreign Ministry in July last year and discovered that most of the parts involving Dokdo had been smeared with ink. He notified the Korea Dokdo and Marine Territory Research Center of the discovery, which discovered the two ordinances by using the items listed above the smeared ones as evidence.

The reason the parts involving Dokdo were smeared with ink in the documents was most likely an attempt to hide the two ordinances, after realizing their significance. The Japanese government must clarify its position on the two ordinances, which it enacted voluntarily, reflect on its years of false claims to ownership of Dokdo on the international stage and retract those claims.