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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1526483
Post-Fukushima Innovation: Establishing a Regional Marine Environmental Cooperation Mechanism in Northeast Asia with Global Implications
Provisionally accepted- 1Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
- 2Qufu Normal University, Qufu, Shandong Province, China
- 3University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
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On September 20, 2024, China and Japan reached four consensuses on the discharge of Fukushima ALPS-treated water into the sea. This not only eased the tense trade relations between the two states but also provided an important opportunity to build a new type of marine environmental protection cooperation in Northeast Asia. In fact, there are multiple environmental protection communication mechanisms in Northeast Asia, but there is a lack of truly binding regional environmental protection legal frameworks such as the Espoo Convention and the Aarhus Convention. We should take advantage of this opportunity to reach a consensus on cooperation between China and Japan on the discharge of Fukushima nuclear wastewater into the sea, combine the actual situation between states in Northeast Asia, learn from and improve the relatively mature cross-border environmental protection mechanism in Europe, and rely on the existing regional environmental protection cooperation mechanism available in Northeast Asia to improve and upgrade it, promote the construction of a new Northeast Asian marine environmental protection legal mechanism, and contribute Northeast Asian wisdom and examples to the world's marine environmental protection cause.
Keywords: Regional Marine Environmental Cooperation Mechanism, Fukushima accident, ALPS-water, Northeast Aisa, NOWPAP
Received: 11 Nov 2024; Accepted: 10 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 An, Li and Xie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ran An, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
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