The emergence of international ocean regime and the change of power concept in international society - The case of United Nations convention on the law of the sea

Abstract

As the political arguments on international power concept has gradually been deepened, the role of international regimes, defined as principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which nation-actors' expectations converge in a given issue-area, has also been reinforced. There are many ways of understanding about international regimes. In terms of realistic theories, international regimes are one of methods of maintaining hegemonic power order of hegemonic nation and in terms of liberalistic theories, international regimes are understood as the products of mutual inter-dependence of nations in changing international society. As a matter of fact, if we take structural causes and regime consequences into severe consideration, we can find not a few characteristics of international regimes, such as security regime, world trade and finance regime, ocean regime, environmental regime, human right regime, etc. This paper will examine the changing concept of power after World War II in three categories of hard power (military power), meta power (regime creating power), and soft power (advanced in cultural, diplomatical, and technological power). This paper will provide the evidence of why the changing power concepts will be strongly related with the emergence of international regimes. The UN convention on the law of the sea will chosen as a standard case of the ocean regime and it's regime structure and role will also be analysed in both realistic and liberalistic theories. Futhermore, the nations' interests involved in the UN convention on the law of the sea will be analytically classified and finally a future prospectus of the UN convention on the law of the sea as an ocean regime will be tested.