China has refused to participate in an arbitration launched by the Philippines regarding their disputes in the South China Sea. Japan has refused to acknowledge that it has a dispute with China regarding Senkaku/Diaoyu. South Korea has rejected Japan’s offer to refer their dispute over Dokdo/ Takeshima to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on […]
The United Nations arbitration proceedings will not settle the issue of ownership of whether the Philippines or China owns the disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday. DFA Assistant Secretary Charles Jose said the matter of “who owns what” would not be settled in the Permanent Court […]
Malaysia and the other Asean member nations do not recognise China’s duplicating claims in the South China Sea as they are not in line with the provisions of international law. Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin said the claims based on the “nine-dash line” were also not in line with the United Nations Convention on […]
MANILA – The Philippine diplomatic delegation on June 12 stressed before the United Nations that China’s expansionist policy claiming almost all of the South China Sea should concern the international community as a whole. Speaking at the annual meeting of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which counts […]
In just a few weeks, international judges will begin to consider the legality of China’s ‘U-shaped line’ claim in the South China Sea. The venue will be the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and the Court’s first step – during deliberations in July – will be to consider whether it should even consider […]
China’s increased pace of island-building in the disputed South China Sea has angered many of its neighbors, but China insists that its land-reclamation activities are no cause for concern. In an email interview, Mira Rapp Hooper, a fellow with the Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the director of its […]
BEIJING: Defending its action in directing a US surveillance plane out of a disputed area in the South China Sea, China today invoked the UN’s maritime law while asserting that freedom of navigation does not allow foreign military vessels to violate sovereignty of coastal states. “Recently some people are hyping up freedom of navigation in […]
The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague has announced that in July it will be holding the first hearing on the 2013 arbitration case the Philippines filed against China questioning the legal validity of China’s ‘9-dash line’ claim over the South China Sea. Since China has refused to participate in any way in […]
THE main theme of Mr Mark Valencia’s commentary published in The Straits Times last Saturday is that if the United States Navy exercises rights of navigation and overflight in the waters surrounding the reefs on which China is constructing artificial islands through reclamation, the US will be engaging in “gunboat diplomacy”. He also argues that […]
China’s reclamation activities in disputed waters of the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) damage the environment and violate international laws, international researchers said. “Large-scale reclamation work in the South China Sea using living coral reefs as building material is causing severe environmental damage. It is also against international law,” said Youna Lyons and Wong […]