Dokdo is a symbol of Korea's territorial sovereignty

By Doh See-hwan

This year marks the 78th anniversary of Korea's restoration of sovereignty after gaining independence from Japan, but there are still ongoing provocations due to Japanese encroachments into Korean territory. Specifically, Japan's ever-increasing claims to Dokdo, a symbol of Korea's territorial sovereignty.

Moreover, 2025 is the 120th anniversary of Japan's invasion of Korea's Dokdo, and it is worth noting that the Japanese government is attempting to distort not only historical facts but also international legal principles through the Japanese Society of International Law, which is building a policy basis for Japan's claim to Dokdo.

In other words, the seriousness of the problem is that the Japanese government's claim to Dokdo has been raised via the theory of the preoccupation of terra nullius in 1905. And the historical distortion with the inherited territory in the 17th century, is being transformed into a comprehensive policy of strengthening international legal titles, and that such a long-term strategic distortion frames the results as a legal distortion with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951.

Therefore, it is a historical mission and an international legal task that is given to us today to trace the genealogy of the research on titles of the Japanese Society of International Law, which have provided the "legal" principle for the Japanese government's claim to Dokdo and to identify the essential problems of the legal distortions inherent in the treaty based on title research.

With this in mind, I traced the genealogy of research on titles that the Japanese Society of International Law uses, starting with the "Theory of historical title" by Takeshi Minagawa, "Theory of original title" by Toshio Ueda, "Theory of substitutional title" by Kanae Daijudo, "Theory of commonable title" by Gentaro Serita. And I reviewed "Theory of effective title" by Hirose Yoshio based on the View of History on International Law, the epitome of the lineage of research on titles to Dokdo's sovereignty.

After Hirose Yoshio's "the View of History on International Law" which established the core of the Japanese government's claim that both Japanese colonial rule and the Dokdo invasion were legitimate, the research on titles from the Japanese Society of International Law, including Takashi Tsukamoto and Tetsuya Nakano, who appear as mainstream scholars, reaches the same conclusion. Regardless of the theoretical difference, it all conceals the essence of Japan's colonial invasion and distorts Japan's invasion of Dokdo legally under international law.

At this point, due to the defects in international law regarding the theory of the preoccupation of terra nullius in 1905, which the Japanese government claimed as the original title in international law on the 1905 Dokdo invasion, the inherited territory in the 17th century was raised as a historical title in the verbal note sent to the Korean government in 1962, but when the conflicting limitations between the two were exposed, it is necessary to identify the distortion of the principle of international law in that the Japanese Society of International Law is attempting to prove the title based on the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

In this regard, it is essential to examine the legal distortion using the historical inflection point of the rise of the Cold War system in relation to the treaty based title research coming from the Japanese Society of International Law, mobilizing the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

In other words, in relation to the Allies' territorial policy toward Japan at the end of World War II, the Cairo Declaration (1943. 12. 1), the Potsdam Declaration (1945. 7. 26), the Surrender Document (1945. 9. 2) and SCAPIN 677 of the Allied High Command (1946. 1.29), SCAPIN 1033 (1946. 6. 22), Dokdo was marked as Korean territory until the fifth draft of the San Francisco Treaty, but after the only change to Japanese territory in the sixth draft, the notation of Dokdo itself was omitted until the final treaty.

Nonetheless, when examining the arguments of the Japanese Society of International Law that they claim as the treaty based title to Japan's territorial sovereignty over Dokdo, Dokdo was changed to Japanese territory in the sixth draft of the San Francisco Peace Treaty through a telegram sent on Nov. 14, 1949 and the written opinion on Nov. 19, sent to the U.S. State Department by William J. Sebald, an American political adviser to Japan, as an extension of that, a Rusk letter was delivered to Korea on August 10, 1951, denying Dokdo as Korean territory.

However, Dokdo, which was the Japanese territory in only the sixth draft, was omitted from the final treaty, and in the process of requesting the Japanese Parliament's consent to ratify the San Francisco Peace Treaty. In the fact, Dokdo is marked as Korean territory in "the reference map of the Japanese territory" produced by the Japanese National Maritime Security Agency in August 1951, Sebald's lobby which linked the interests of the United States and Japan also ended in failure.

In addition, regarding the validity of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the Rusk letter dated Aug. 10, 1951, which the Japanese government insisted on, was a secret document not disclosed to the Japanese government and was published as a foreign relations document of the United States dated April 28, 1978. The theory of approval of the San Francisco Peace Treaty on "the preoccupation of terra nullius in 1905" is being raised. However, the content of the Rusk letter is based on false information provided by Japan and the approval of the San Francisco Peace Treaty is nothing more than a typical distortion of historical facts and international law.

Therefore, it should be noted that the Japanese government's territorial claim to Dokdo, which mobilized the San Francisco Peace Treaty, coincides with Japanese colonialism as the essence of violence and greed declared in the Cairo Declaration. As Korea's true territorial sovereignty on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of liberation and the cornerstone of the East Asian Peace Community, I urge Japan to fulfill its true historical and international legal obligations regarding Dokdo's Korean sovereignty.

Dr. Doh See-hwan is a senior research fellow at the Northeast Asian History Foundation.