| Territorial claims in the South China Sea.Photo file wikimedia. |
Judges at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague hands down its ruling today in favor of the Philippines.
Going back, the Philippines filed its case against China’s purported “nine-dash line” on January 22, 2013
with a Notification and Statement of Claim (NSC) pursuant to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) following some harassments of Filipino fishermen by chinese navy and standoff between Philippine navy and chinese naval ship.
But China refused to recognize and did not participate the proceedings and said that the maritime dispute should be settled through bilateral talks.
Since the case is running, China has constructed reclamation projects that can handle military bases and weapons in some of the disputed areas.
After several months of hearing, the tribunal declared that the disputed areas in west philippine sea(south china sea) legitimately belongs to the Filipinos.
The Tribunal concluded that China has no legal basis on its “nine-dash line” claim and has violated Philippine sovereign rights.
“There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line.
Having found that none of the features claimed by China was capable of generating an exclusive economic zone, the Tribunal found that it could—without delimiting a boundary—declare that certain sea areas are within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, because those areas are not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China,
Having found that certain areas are within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, the Tribunal found that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by (a) interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, (b) constructing artificial islands and (c) failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone,
The Tribunal further held that Chinese law enforcement vessels had unlawfully created a serious risk of collision when they physically obstructed Philippine vessels.”
After hearing this development, the Philippine government released a non-provocative statement and hold a meeting to study what’s the next thing to do.
Some source from globalnation.inquirer.net/
