Russia and some pending law of the sea issues in the North Pacific: Controversies over higher seas fisheries regulation and delimitation of marine spaces

• Published in: Ocean Development & International Law
• Main Author: Saguirian, Artemy A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 1992
• Subjects: Bering Sea; Pacific
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/33441/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/33441/1/Saguirian.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1080/00908329209545971

The North Pacific is a sea area of primary interest to Russia, which inherited key strategic interests of the former Soviet Union. But the North Pacific has also become an area of increasing resource exploitation activity. These factors lead to an even more active involvement in regional political relations. The article touches on a number of most urgent, controversial, and still unsolved issues faced today by the Russian Federation. The author concentrates on two major problems: the issue of international fisheries in the so‐called doughnut hole (located in the central Bering Sea), and the highly controversial questions of marine spaces delimitation between Russia on one side and Japan (which raises a more general political question of sovereignty over the four southernmost islands of the Kuril chain) and the United States on the other.