Settling disputed oceans: Law, enforcement, and the state effect in the Taiwan-Japan fisheries agreement

Abstract

Since the 1970s, Taiwan, Japan, and China have been engaged in a contest over claims to the Senkaku Islands and the surrounding water in the East China Sea. One root of this maritime dispute is the unsettled political status of Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands, and the surrounding marine area in the period that has followed since Japanese colonialism and the Cold War. In 2013, Taiwan and Japan reached an agreement that resolved at least one dimension of this dispute: the agreement created a joint fisheries management area that set out terms and conditions for fisheries around the Senkaku Islands. Our analysis of the Taiwan-Japan Agreement, fisheries laws, and verdicts that emerge from Taiwan's law enforcement activity in the designated fishery Area reveals the opportunities and contradictions that this agreement yields in Taiwan's ongoing efforts to convey its state effect to the domestic and international community. More broadly, the analysis contributes to ongoing work situating state theory in the oceans by turning attention to the intersection of environmental geopolitics and law enforcement practices in fisheries management in the context of East Asia.