The attorney representing the Philippines in a dispute with China over territorial claims to the South China Sea on Friday (October 30) said a Hague court’s decision to hear the case would test the rule of law in international maritime cases.
“I think that this a real test of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the rules of international law, which are embodied therein. Either the convention is a relevant, is a relevant legal instrument, and is applied equally and fairly to all states, no matter how big or powerful, but all states’ parties, or it’s just a worthless piece of paper,” Washington attorney Paul Reichler told Reuters.
Manila filed the case in 2013 to seek a ruling on its right to exploit the South China Sea waters in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The tribunal found it had authority to hear seven of Manila’s submissions under UNCLOS and China’s decision not to participate did “not deprive the tribunal of jurisdiction”.
The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected Beijing’s claim that the disputes were about territorial sovereignty and said additional hearings would be held to decide the merits of the Philippines’ arguments.
Reichler said those hearings would likely be held this winter with the possibility of a final decision next summer.
A U.S. official said the tribunal’s decision undercut China’s claims under the so-called nine-dashed line that takes in about 90 percent of the 3.5 million sq km (1.35 million sq mile) South China Sea on Chinese maps.
This vague boundary was officially published on a map by China’s Nationalist government in 1947 and has been included in subsequent maps under Communist rule.
Though a final decision is far in the future, Reichler was bullish about the caliber of the Philippines’ case.
“Getting to the merits of the issue of whether China’s contention that it has exclusive sovereign rights and jurisdiction of all of the waters within the so-called ‘nine-dashed line’ takes us far more than halfway to the ultimate objective. I don’t think that there’s a serious scholar or jurist or practitioner of public international law who thinks that there’s any merit whatsoever to China’s claim to exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction and sovereign rights within waters, within an arbitrary line that they have unilaterally created, that extends six, seven and 800 miles from their coast,” he said.
China has boycotted the proceedings and rejects the court’s authority in the case. Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, dismissing claims to parts of it from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
The court’s rulings are binding, although it has no power to enforce them and countries have ignored them in the past.
Reichler predicted China would eventually comply with the tribunal’s decision.
“As everyone knows, there’s no army, there’s no police that a court or arbitration tribunal can send to make a state comply. So why do they do it? Why do they do it in almost every single one of the cases? And I’ll give you a couple of examples that may seem surprising to you…They do it, because in the long run, not necessarily in the short run, they come to realize that it is in their national interest not to be and remain an international outlaw state,” Reichler said.
In a position paper in December, China argued the dispute was not covered by UNCLOS because it was ultimately a matter of sovereignty, not exploitation rights.
UNCLOS does not rule on sovereignty but it does outline a system of territory and economic zones that can be claimed from features such as islands, rocks and reefs.
The court said it could hear arguments including one contending that several South China Sea reefs and shoals were not important enough to base territorial claims on. (Reuters)