Major Activities The Society for EAST SEA

    IHO(International Hydrographic Organization)

    International Hydrographic Organization(IHO) is an international organization that promotes international standardization and technological cooperation between countries in waterways and oceans. Founded in 1921, the International Hydrographic Bureau (IHB) is its predecessor, and its current name has been in use since 1970. 
    Prior to 2017, a regular general meeting was held every five years, and a special general meeting was held every three years from 2017 when it was reorganized into the Assemble system. As of January 2022, it has 97 member countries.

    IHO
    and Sea name 'East Sea'

    • The point where IHO meets the name of the East Sea is its publication Limits of Oceans and Sea (published number S-23). Japan Sea (French Mer du Japan) was adopted in the draft of the booklet, which was completed in 1923 and entered into force in 1929, and the name remained the same in the second and third editions in 1937.
      The Korean government has raised the issue with this notation since 1994, and has since led to continuous discussions at the general meeting. The discussion, which had not seen any clear results, ended in November 2020, when it was decided to introduce the 'a system of unique identifiers' to replace the sea name. Now, 'Japan Sea' is not used in charts and documents published by IHO, and numeric names are introduced.

    Activities of
    the Society of East Sea

    • Since 1997, the Society of East Sea has served as an advisor to the Korean delegation to the IHO General Assembly and supported the production of prints and souvenirs related to the East Sea notation distributed at the General Assembly.
      We also participated as a representative of Korea for the Working Group for the Amendment of S-23 organized and active within the IHO between 2009 and 2012.

     

     

    UNGEGN
    (United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names)

    The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographic Names (UNGEGN) is a specialized organization established in 1967 under the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to support UN activities by allowing countries around the world to share accurate and standardized nominations.
    The United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographic Names (UNCSGN), an intergovernmental consultative body, and a group of experts who supported its activities were launched in 2018 under a new UNGEGN brand.

    UNGEGN
    and Sea name 'East Sea'

    • It was the 6th UNCSGN held in 1992 that the Korean government first raised the issue of the name of the East Sea in the international community. It was the first meeting since joining the United Nations in 1991.
      The Korean government, which succeeded in strongly conveying the fact that the name "East Sea" exists in the sea between Korea and Japan, actively used the general meeting held later as a place to announce the validity of the name of the East Sea.
      The organization made sharing of the principle of standardization of nominations and best practices an important value and argued that individual nominations were not covered in principle, but experts from each country listened to Korea's arguments.

    Activities of
    the Society of East Sea

    • The Society of the East Sea was at the center of networking with experts from each country while attending the general meeting as a Korean delegation.
      Their professional interest in the issue of the East Sea name led to participation in seminars, workshops, or various discussion forums.
      Lee Ki-seok, an honorary professor at Seoul National University (currently an advisor to the Donghae Research Association), who has attended since the 1992 general meeting, invited the UNGEGN chairmen to Korea several times while working as chairman of the Working Group on Evaluation and Implementation (2002∼2012).
      Choo Sung-jae, a professor at Kyunghee University (current chairman), took over this position in 2012, and has been a reporter at the UNGEGN executive branch since 2017 and is currently a vice-chairman.