The Importance of the Case in International Law

1. The Importance or Significance of The Case in International Law:
The case is rooted into international law since decades. It may seem that the case includes only China
and Phillioines but actually it does affect more than that. Such as, “the Award represents at its heart a
classical reassertion of the necessary balancing of rights and obligations that UNCLOS has always sought
to achieve. As the preamble to the Convention very famously had caused to note: ‘the desirability of
establishing through this Convention, with due regard for the sovereignty of all States, a legal order for
the seas’.”1 Like the award, the whole dispute is a milestone in future similar dispute between
countries. The award can be considered as a precedent and hence, a source of the International Law as
in a broader sense.
Also, “Of key importance has been the scope of the legal dispute. The international situation in the
South China Sea is a complex interplay of land and maritime disputes, involving not only the Philippines
and China but also many of the other regional States, including Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei, as well as
other maritime powers, including, notably, the United States. Many of the disputes revolve around
questions of sovereignty of land but, as a treaty on maritime affairs, UNCLOS does not address territorial
sovereignty, nor can its dispute resolution procedures resolve maritime disputes that implicitly require
the underlying territorial sovereignty also to be adjudged. As a general principle of international law,
‘the land dominates the sea’ and thus a State’s sovereignty over maritime areas flows from its
sovereignty of its land territory. To avoid this insurmountable jurisdictional issue, the Philippines’ claims
were narrowly constructed to avoid questions of territorial sovereignty, or in any way requiring the
Tribunal to delimit maritime boundaries (which would invariably require agreement or a judgment on
the sovereignty over particular territory).”2
“China, the Philippines, ASEAN countries, and the United States face a range of strategic questions about
the best way forward. Will Beijing demonstrate its disregard for the decision by engaging in land
reclamation at Scarborough Shoal or declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone in the South China Sea,
as some have predicted? Will it continue to insist on conditioning any future bilateral negotiations with
the administration of new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on his government’s rejection of the
Tribunal’s Award? Will it worry that some of these behaviors will push the Philippines and other ASEAN
nations closer to the United States? Will we see the U.S. Navy conducting ‘pure’ freedom of navigation
operations (FONOPs) within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Island features the Tribunal says are not
entitled to a territorial sea?”3
1 Duncan French (2017), In the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration: Republic of Philippines v
People’s Republic of China, Arbitral Tribunal Constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Law
of the Sea Convention, Case No. 2013-19, Award of 12 July 2016, (online) Environmental Law Review,
available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461452916680866 (accessed on 9th May,
2019).
2 Ibid;
3 Robert D. Williams, (2016), Tribunal Issues Landmark Ruling in South China Sea Arbitration, (Online)
Lawfare Blog, available at: https://www.lawfareblog.com/tribunal-issues-landmark-ruling-south-china-
sea-arbitration (accessed on 9th May, 2019).