Manila Times/Manila
Despite the presence of a high-level Philippine team at the hearing of the Philippines’ case against China before the arbitral tribunal of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) this week, the issue of who owns the contested islands in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) will remain unresolved.
That’s because the Philippine team won’t be arguing its territorial claims, which are not under the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in The Hague in the Netherlands.
“We are very confident that we can convince the court that this is not about ownership of land,” said former Solicitor General and now Supreme Court Justice Francis Jardeleza, who is part of the Philippine team.
Instead, the Philippines merely wants the tribunal, which interprets Unclos, to invalidate China’s nine-dash line claim over the South China Sea.
Territorial claims are the jurisdiction of another body, the International Court of Justice, and the ICJ only entertains cases if all parties in the dispute participate. China has refused to do so.
But although the Philippines is not arguing about who owns what in the South China Sea, its arguments have been misconstrued.
Jardeleza said: “For example, we’re not asking the court to say who owns Panatag Shoal. We are arguing that they are within our EEZ (exclusive economic zone) and therefore under the rules of Unclos we have exclusive rights to fish within that area.”
It is this posturing by the Philippines that China calls sly and cunning. Although saying it is not making a territorial claim before the tribunal, the Philippines’ words practically establish ownership of islands and areas, the Chinese government said. In its position paper submitted in December 2014, China said: “The Philippines has cunningly packaged its case in the present form.”
“This contrived packaging, however, fails to conceal the very essence of the subject-matter of the arbitration, namely, the territorial sovereignty over certain maritime features in the South China Sea,” China’s position
paper said.
