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| China's moving lines (Click Image to Enlarge) |
Wendell Minnick
The international Permanent Court of Arbitration today found China in violation of numerous parts of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), capping a case filed by the Philippines in 2013 over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
The Beijing-controlled media roundly scorned the unanimous July 12 decision, and the court noted in its written opinion that China has repeatedly stated it would “neither accept nor participate in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines.”
The arbitration filed by the Philippines before the court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, concerned the role of historic rights and the source of maritime entitlements in the South China Sea. China has cited ancient maps and documents that allegedly indicate historic precedence to dominate and control an area roughly the size of India.
The Hague ruled that to the extent that China had historic rights to resources in the waters of the South China Sea, such rights were extinguished when incompatible with the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) set out in the UNCLOS text. The tribunal also noted that while navigators and fishermen from China and elsewhere had historically made use of the islands, there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or their resources. The Hague concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the nine-dash line that China uses to claim the entirety of the South China Sea.
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