The Northwest Passage is a sea route – or, to be exact, it is a collected name for four routes – that connect Europe and East Asia. Despite its considerable length (it spans circa 5780 kilometers) and notorious nautical difficulties it provides a decent alternative to the route through the Panama Canal due to being roughly 4000 kilometers shorter. In the present day the route is seasonal and is predominately operated by Canadian entities. Recently however it has seen in-creased interest due to climate change.

While Canada claims the waters of the Northwest Passage to be their internal waters, some experts say this claim, notwithstanding its historical grounds, may be deemed an abuse of sovereignty. Canada exercises creeping jurisdiction there, with Article 234 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982) as its sole justification. The United States, on the other hand, believes the Passage is in fact a strait connecting two areas of open sea and thus should remain part of international waters. On 11 January 1988 USA and Canada have signed an agreement on cooperation inthe Arctic.

The Author predicts the more disagreements over the Northwest Passage in the coming years as the core problem continues to be unresolved.

Organized security groups are operational on board some commercial vessels. These are professional units comprised of personnel whose only duties are to ensure that the overall physical safety of the vessel is maintained. Since maritime law does not take a position regarding such services, it can be concluded that the formation and maintenance of them is legal. Nevertheless, in order for potential actions taken by such groups to be acknowledged as legal, they must not exceed repelling direct attacks on the guarded vessel. It is not likely that attempts will be made in the nearest future to bring this issue under the detailed regulation of international law. The principles guiding the actions o f security groups are governed by the laws of the country of the ship’s flag. The role of the security officer has increased significantly within the hierarchy of the ship’s command. On the majority of large passenger vessels this is now a full-time position, and the person in charge of security is directly subordinate to the captain.

The authors attempted to present the state of disputes regarding the delimitation of marine areas based on a discussion of the practices of countries in the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan region. The authors describe the disputes regarding the islands of Senaku (Diaoyu) between both China and Taiwan and Japan and those over the Dokdo (Takeshima) archipelago between the Republic of Korea and Japan. There are many similarities between these two marine territorial disputes. The core of the disputes is land that is devoid of significant economic importance. Due to this, these areas were not previously of interest to coastal countries. They came to the forefront when their location facilitated determining exclusive economic zones. This intensified when evidence of crude oil and natural gas resources was detected in these areas. Tensions eased when geological reports revealed that initial estimates were overly optimistic. The fundamental cause of disputes over archipelagos is that they can be used to determine exclusive economic zones. The problem is compounded when the politicians of Eastern Asia incite historical remembrance. This is especially evident in the cases of Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and China, whose governments are, to some extent, hostages of ultra-nationalistic factions.