Top Philippine judge calls for new arbitration case over China ‘threat’

MANILA: A Philippines Supreme Court judge called on Saturday for Manila to file an international arbitration case and a complaint with the United Nations over what the country’s leader said was a threat of war made by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a staunch critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s business-focused rapprochement with China, said the use or threat of force to settle disputes between states is outlawed under the UN Charter and if the president did nothing to protest that, he was “selling us out”.

Duterte on Friday said his Chinese SYDNEY: Australia is investigating if problems in the propulsion systems of two $1.5 billion warships built by manufacturers from Spain, Germany and Britain are the result of design flaws.

Naval engineers are trying to figure out exactly what is causing the problems onboard the HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Canberra, the largest ships ever constructed for the Royal Australian Navy.

Both Landing Helicopter Docks (LHDs) were built by Spanish firm Navantia using propulsion pods from German company Siemens, and fitted counterpart had warned him there would be war if Manila tried to enforce an arbitration ruling and drill with combat and communications systems by British company BAE Systems.

Oils have leaked into parts of the vessels’ propulsion system where they shouldn’t be, naval chiefs said in a briefing on Friday. “Am I disappointed? Yes. We were not expecting to find this,” said Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, the chief of the Royal Australian Navy.

Rear Admiral Adam Grunsell, the head of maritime systems in defence force’s capability acquisition and sustainment group, said the problem could be a design issue, but stressed it for oil in a disputed part of the South China Sea. China has not responded to Duterte’s latest comment.

He was referring to the 2016 ruling by an arbitral tribunal in The Hague granting the Philippines sovereign rights to access offshore oil and gas fields in its Exclusive Economic Zone, including the Reed Bank, in the South China Sea. Carpio said Xi’s threat was a “gross violation” of the United Nations Charter, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia to which China and the Philippines are parties. was too early to speculate.

The HMAS Adelaide, which is currently dry docked in Sydney Harbour, will miss the biennial Talisman Sabre joint military training exercise with the United States in June, Barrett said.

It was unknown, as yet, what role HMAS Canberra would take.

The three companies are working with the navy to help identify the problems.

A spokeswoman for BAE Systems in Australia said the company was working with the navy to restore the ships’ capabilities. — Reuters