by Liu Fang, Maria Vasileiou
THE HAGUE, May 22 (Xinhua) -- When the South China Sea (SCS) arbitration tribunal ruled that it has jurisdiction over Phillipines' case against China, it had gravely violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an expert on the law of the sea said on Friday.
China has made a written statement in 2006, excluding and refusing to accept "any compulsory jurisdiction over any disputes concerning interpretation or practice of the Convention" involving "maritime boundary delimitation, territorial sovereignty, military confrontation, and/or historical titles," said Professor Kuen-chen Fu, Dean of the South China Sea Institute from China's Xiamen University.
According to article 298 of the UNCLOS, such a written statement entitled China to be exempted to the present compulsory situation, said Fu when meeting international journalists in The Hague.
"However, the Philippines unilaterally initiated a wrapped arbitration case against China in January 2013. And regretfully, the tribunal failed to pierce the veil of forged cause of action of the Philippines case," said the professor, who graduated from National Taiwan University and the University of Virginia School of Law.
In this case, the Philippines raised submissions on entitlements of maritime features which it has no sovereignty and asserted that these submissions did not relate to sovereignty or delimitation, therefore not excluded from compulsory settlement.
The Philippines, supported by the United States, is trying to challenge sovereignty issues by playing tricks to say their claims are not setting for the sovereignty issues but only for interpretation of the convention, explained the professor.
"We all know that 'Land dominates the sea' is the basic principle in the Convention. As long as the sovereignty issue is not settled, how could you decide on issues such as claims of territorial sea, the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the continental shelf (CS)? " Fu argued.
Noting the Philipines' self-made term of "maritime entitlements" which refers to the territorial sea, the EEZ or the CS that an island or a rock can claim or not, the law expert said the cause of the action is a forged one, and the arbitrators should have the obligation "to pierce the veil."
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