Hague court rules China offshore ‘rights’ invalid
As Manila cheers, Beijing rejects decision as ‘unjust’
BEIJING — Delivering a sweeping moral victory for the Philippines, an international tribunal ruled Tuesday that China’s claims to “historic rights” across a vast expanse of the South China Sea are invalid.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, Netherlands, also said that no land formations in the South China Sea are big enough to warrant exclusive maritime zones beyond 12 miles.
In recent years, China has asserted what it views as territorial rights in the sea by building up remote reefs into much larger land forms. Its fishing fleets have used those assertions to move into areas claimed by other countries, including the Philippines.
The five-judge panel said China’s island-building activities violated the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, as did its moves to deny Filipinos access to their traditional fishing grounds. The panel also rapped China for environmental destruction it said was a breach of UNCLOS.
There is no way for the Philippines to immediately enforce the ruling, and it is not clear what practical effect it might have. Experts said it could force Manila and Beijing back to the negotiating table — or prompt other countries to take similar legal action.
Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have various claims in the area, a vast expanse rich in fish as well as other natural resources, including oil and gas.
The panel was not deciding directly on matters of Filipinos celebrate Tuesday after an international arbitration tribunal ruled on the dispute in South China Sea. sovereignty in the South China Sea and which countries should control what reefs, shoals and other outcroppings in the region. Instead, the court was ruling on questions including whether a number of disputed land masses in the area should be considered islands, rocks or “low tide elevations.”
Those designations are important because under UNCLOS, they affect what kind of territorial or economic rights go with the features. For example, if something is considered an island capable in its natural form of sustaining human habitation, the country controlling it would be entitled to 12 nautical miles of territorial waters and a 200-mile economic exclusion zone. But if it is a “low tide elevation,” which is submerged during high tide, it’s entitled to no territorial waters.
The court ruled that no features in the area were, in their natural state, bigger than rocks, and thus none were entitled to maritime zones bigger than 12 miles.
Beijing boycotted the proceedings and said it would ignore the ruling. China and the Philippines are signatories to UNCLOS, but the tribunal has no powers of enforcement.
Philippine Foreign Sec- retary Perfecto Yasay hailed the ruling as a “milestone decision” and said experts were studying the ruling. “In the meantime, we call on all those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety,” he said.
China’s Foreign Ministry denounced the ruling. China “solemnly declares that the award is null and void and has no binding force. China neither accepts nor recognizes it,” the ministry said in a statement. It said Manila’s “unilateral initiation of arbitration” manifested “bad faith,” and it called the tribunal “unjust and unlawful.”
The People’s Daily, the Communist Party publication, quoted President Xi Jinping as saying Tuesday that the islands in the South China sea “had been part of the territory of China since ancient times and that its maritime rights “are not influenced by the verdict under any circumstances.”
At the center of the fight is what Beijing calls the “nine- dash line,” a Ushaped area dipping far off the mainland’s southern coast that encompasses the Paracel and Spratly islands and Scarborough Shoal.