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Submarine Cable Sabotage: International Responses and Implications for South Korea
Shin Sohyun
1322025.05.23
Increasing Submarine Cable Sabotage as a Grey Zone Strategy
In recent years, sabotage targeting undersea cables have occurred in multiple regions around the world, including the Baltic Sea, Taiwan Strait, and the Red Sea. However, under the current international legal framework remains insufficient to regulate such sabotage or to ensure the effective protection of submarine cable infrastructure. Undersea cables located within a coastal State’s territorial sea or archipelagic waters enjoy a certain degree of legal protection derived from the State’s sovereignty and jurisdiction. By contrast, cables laid in areas beyond national jurisdiction—particularly on the high seas—remain far more vulnerable due to the absence of comprehensive enforcement mechanisms.
This article is an English Summary of Asan Issue Brief (2025-15).
(‘해저 케이블 사보타주에 대한 국제사회의 대응과 한국에 대한 시사점’)
Shin Sohyun
Research Fellow
Dr. Shin Sohyun is a research fellow in the Centre for Foreign Policy and National Security at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Her research mainly focuses on the international norm change and progress in the new spaces: cyberspace and outer space following the development of emerging technologies such as ICT, AI, space technology and quantum computing, etc. Dr. Shin has interests in interdisciplinary and socio-legal research combining new technologies and law and policy relating to armed conflict, military operations, weapons, cyber espionage and intelligence as well as disaster, environment and human rights. She was the founding member of Sejong Institute Cybersecurity Centre(2020-2022) and organised ‘Cybersecurity Forum’. She worked as a research fellow of Korea University Institute of Cyber Security & Privacy. Dr. Shin published “The Regulation of State’s Hostile Disinformation Operations in Cyberspace”, “Space Security and International Law”, and “Cyber Deterrence and US Defence Forward Strategy in International Law”, etc.
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