EXAMINED: The South China Sea Arbitration Award

Photo courtesy of Ant Rozetsky

by Dr. James Jongsoo Lee

Is China a revisionist power challenging the rules-based international order? How are China’s Asian neighbors dealing with China’s rise, including its actions in the South China Sea? For a perspective on these and other matters, Jongsoo Lee interviews Jay L. Batongbacal, a professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law and the director of the university’s Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

Lee: It has been five years since the ruling in the Philippines vs. China arbitration case brought under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). How would you evaluate the significance and the impact of the ruling?

Batongbacal: The South China Sea Arbitration Award is the most legally significant development in the long-running, complicated, and multi-party territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea (SCS). It shows the way forward to a fair and equitable allocation of jurisdiction and resources of a common sea area between several competing nations, in accordance with the terms of one of the most important global multilateral agreements of modern times.

Article continued at The Diplomat

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Dr. James Jongsoo Lee is Senior Managing Director at Brock Securities and Center Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum and Contributing Editor at The Diplomat. He can be followed on Twitter at @jameslee004

This article was originally published by The Diplomat

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.