Actually, Japan has adopted a similar 3-mile limit in the same area a little bit earlier. The reason why these two countries had the same intention of limiting their territorial sea is this Strait plays as a sensitive roll as the unique outlet to the Pacific Ocean for the Former USSR, now Russia from its unique naval port in the Far East------ Vladivostok. Those limitations are capable of creating a high sea corridor with width of 11.8 nautical miles through the Western Channel by avoiding the enforcement of the domestic laws. As a result, the high seas routes according to the Article 36 of 1982 Convention are artificially created and left as Western Channel and Eastern Channel located on the both sides of Tsushima Island parallel with the direction of the Strait. Hence, the foreign vessels including warships are entitled to pass through the Korea Strait on ground of freedoms of navigation in high sea. On the other hand, according to Article 36 of the 1982 Convention, the foreign warships are not justified to enter the territorial sea of the coastal states, for example, Korea, the Southeast part of which, including Puhang, Pusan etc, is the significant industrial and pivotal informational district, being kept at least 5 nautical miles from any possible spying reconnaissance activities on the foreign warships. Even though, why not adopt the equidistance- median rule to cover the Channel territorially as an international strait with the right of transit passage during the peaceful period according to Article 38 of 1982 Convention in the root of Kofu Channel Case of ICJ, providing the basic convenience to the Super Power? This will step in the most debatable practice.　
　　The most debatable practice
　　The most debatable part of Korean Practices is in the territorial sea in the Strait the requirement for foreign warships or other government ships to give prior notice to the Korean authority before passing, which seems to happen only frequently in the straits. Article 4 of the Enforcement Decree in 1978, supra, rules that, “if a foreign warship or other government ship operated for non-commercial purposes intends to navigate through the territorial sea, it shall notify the following particulars to the Minister of Foreign Affairs not later than three(3) days (excluding public holidays) prior to its passage in accordance with the latter part of paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the law, except in cases where the area of the waters through which the aforementioned ship navigates forms a strait used for international navigation in which no high seas route exists: (1) Name, type and official number of the ship; (2) Purpose of the passage; and (3) Passage route and schedule”. This provision emphasized the exception where there is no any alternative high seas route. In fact, in this issue, the innocent passage, the transit passage, and the high seas route are overlapped in combination, theoretically.

第 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] 页 共[6]页