The past few decades have witnessed the emergence of a vast array of regional arrangements and institutions dealing with all aspects of ocean management. The level of cooperation ranges from minimal dispute avoidance to relatively comprehensive ocean governance at the regional level. As concrete examples, reasonably successful and comprehensive regional regimes have been created for the Baltic, the North, and the Mediterranean Seas and the South Pacific. And attempts at regional regime building are ongoing in Southeast Asia, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Although there are broad similarities between the semi-enclosed seas of Western Europe and Northeast Asia, no regional maritime regime has yet been initiated in Northeast Asia.
The papers in this volume are authored by leading authorities on not only the maritime affairs of their particular region of focus but on maritime policy in general. They describe and explain existing or incipient regional maritime regimes in an unusually broad comparative context, and extract lessons learned that may be applicable elsewhere including Northeast Asia. The case studies are neatly sandwiched between an introduction to concepts and principles on regional co-operation and concluding chapters on lessons learned and their applicability to Northeast Asia.
Moreover, the papers raise and address several questions of relevance to policy. For example, what factors are conducive to maritime regime initiation, expansion and positive evolution, and which constrain regime formation and evolution? Why has maritime regime building been successful in Europe and largely unsuccessful in Asia? And which, if any, lessons learned in the European context are applicable in Asia? Given the growing interest in regime formation and effectiveness in general and maritime regimes in particular, this book will be of considerable interest to both analysts and policymakers.

Translated by: H.L. Sutcliffe, M. McDonald