{"id":4559,"date":"2021-05-14T08:48:28","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T12:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=4559"},"modified":"2021-05-14T08:48:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T12:48:28","slug":"protests-grow-in-south-korea-over-japans-fukushima-water-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2021\/05\/14\/protests-grow-in-south-korea-over-japans-fukushima-water-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests grow in South Korea over Japan\u2019s Fukushima water plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link: https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/5\/3\/protests-grow-in-south-korea-over-japan-fukushima-disposal-plan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan recently announced its plan to discard waste water that is used to cool nuclear material from their crippled energy plant in Fukushima into the Pacific ocean. Fishing communities are worried the water will contaminate the sea, although Japan promises it will be cleaned of radioactive materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been widespread demonstrations in South Korea, including marine protests. Over the past 30 years South Korea has transformed their fishing industry, it has now grown into a $9bn a year industry\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if Japan releases the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, people will avoid seafood out of fear of contamination which sill result in fishermen losing their livelihoods. Activists have been camping outside of the Japanese embassy, demanding the government change their decision. Which, is a reasonable request as there are other options for dealing with the waste water, but releasing it into the Ocean is the cheapest option. Cities on the southern coast also rely on the ocean for tourism, therefore Japans decision will cause notable damage to South Korea\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to modern international environmental law, the seas were regarded as a dumping ground–a trash can. According to International law specialists, the discharge of the wastewater would violate recent international law. The London Convention of 1972 and 2006, of which Japan is a signatory, sought to prevent pollution of the marine environment caused by dumping harmful material into the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, for the international law to have any weight it has to be enforced by other international bodies, which seems unlikely. The U.K. and U.S. have endorsed Japan\u2019s decision and China has not demonstrated strong opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Japan announced it was discarding toxic material on the land of another country, despite opposition from said state and the damage it would have on its ecosystems and economy, there would be widespread outrage. However, while the pollution is likely to float into South Korea’s EEZ, Japan is not discarding the material within the states territory. Therefore, the lines are blurry and the reasonable response is unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link: https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/5\/3\/protests-grow-in-south-korea-over-japan-fukushima-disposal-plan Japan recently announced its plan to discard waste water that is used to cool nuclear material from their crippled energy plant in Fukushima into the Pacific ocean. Fishing communities are worried the water will contaminate the sea, although Japan promises it will be cleaned of radioactive materials. There have been widespread demonstrations in South Korea, including marine protests…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4560,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4559\/revisions\/4560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}