Given the situation where the Yellow Sea is under serious stress in its marine environment, the UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea Large Marine ecosystem Project has made its continuous efforts to address various marine environmental problems since its inception in 2004. Despite the necessity of North Korea’s participation as one of the three coastal states in the Yellow Sea, the North Korean regime has not participated in this important regional initiative. In order to address this problem, the UNDP/GEF YS LME Project with South Korea and China has aggressively sought a way of ensuring participation of North Korea in its second phase, which will start in 2014. However, due to the UN wide sanctions against North Korea as a result of its nuclear program and hostile actions against South Korea, it may not be possible to allow the country to participate in the second phase of the UNDP/GEF YS LME project. Hence, it would be more appropriate to start the second phase of the UNDP/GEF YS LME Project without North Korea while keeping the possibility of its full participation later on by providing North Korea an observer status.