Liancourt Rocks dispute

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. Please help summarize the quotations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote or excerpts to Wikisource. (March 2023) This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Liancourt Rocks dispute" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Liancourt Rocks dispute, also called the Dokdo dispute or the Takeshima dispute, is a territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan^[1][2][3][4] regarding sovereignty over the Liancourt Rocks, a group of small islets in the Sea of Japan. The rocks are also known in Korea as Dokdo (Korean: 독도; Hanja: 獨島) and in Japan as Takeshima (Japanese: 竹島).^[5] North Korea also claims sovereignty of the islands, but has not pursued its claim to the same extent as the others.^[6]

The Liancourt Rocks have been administered by South Korea since 1952 by the Korea Coast Guard.^[7] This was after the United States said in the Rusk documents that the Japanese claim to the Liancourt Rocks would not be renounced in Japan's post-World-War-II peace treaty.

In 1954, Japan proposed a reference to the International Court of Justice. It was rejected by South Korea, which believes the Liancourt Rocks are irrefutably South Korean territory, and the dispute should not be dealt with through diplomatic negotiations or judicial settlement between South Korea and Japan.^[8]

There are conflicting interpretations about the historical state of sovereignty over the islets. Korean claims are partly based on references to a Korean island called Usan-do in various historical records, maps and encyclopedias such as the Samguk Sagi, Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam (동국여지승람; 東國輿地勝覧), and Dongguk munheon bigo (동국문헌비고; 東國文獻備考). According to the Korean view, these are the Liancourt Rocks. Japanese researchers of these documents have said that the various references to Usan-do refer at different times to Jukdo, Ulleungdo, or a non-existent island between Ulleungdo and Korea.^[9]

Researchers disagree on who first had administrative control over the islets due to ambiguities in early historical records and maps, owing partly to changes in the names of the islands in the area over the years.