BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Whilst an arbitral tribunal itself in dispute will decide on the South China Sea case on July 12, observers believe that the arbitration will not help solve the dispute, and that the problem will not be resolved until the Philippines returns to the negotiating table.
"The South China Sea dispute is beyond jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal," according to Yi Xianhe, an expert on international law from China's Wuhan University.
Yi said the dispute, essentially about territorial and maritime delimitation, does not concern the interpretation or application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
China made an optional exceptions declaration in 2006 pursuant to the Convention, excluding disputes concerning, among others, maritime delimitation from the UNCLOS third party dispute settlement procedures. Some 30 countries have made similar statements.
The tribunal's jurisdiction over the claims is "thoroughly erroneous" and "essentially a political decision," according to a statement by the Chinese Society of International Law.
China and the Philippines had previously agreed to settle disputes through a series of bilateral instruments and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.
"The Philippines' resort to arbitration has obviously breached the doctrine of estoppel," said Jia Yu, deputy director of China Institute for Marine Affairs.
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