deemed to constitute China’s position on the matter.
Despite China’s non-participation, the Tribunal continued the proceedings, as permitted by Annex VII of the Convention. The Tribunal, which was chosen by the Philippines and the President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (“ITLOS”), was presided over by Mr. Thomas Mensah of Ghana, a former President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany. It also included three of the sitting judges on that court, Mr. Jean-Pierre Cot of France, Mr. Rüdiger Wolfrum of Germany and Mr. Stanislaw Pawlak of Poland, and the former director of the Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea, Professor Alfred H.A. Soons.
In October 2015, the Tribunal issued an Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility, in which it concluded that it had jurisdiction over some of the Philippines’ submissions and deferred a decision on others until it decided the merits. That Award is available here.
The hearing on the remaining jurisdictional issues and the merits was held in November 2015. It was attended by some 103 people, including representatives of the governments of Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, which were given observer status due to their interest as littoral States in the South China Sea and/or their membership in the Convention. The United States was denied observer status on account of not being a party to the Convention.
Two interested States, Vietnam and Malaysia, each submitted statements to the Tribunal re-asserting their own claims and interests in the South China Sea and urging the Tribunal to respect them. Those statements are not available to the public.
Main findings of the Tribunal
In its most far-reaching decision, the Tribunal in yesterday’s ruling rejected China’s claims to more than 90% of the South China Sea on the basis of historic rights. China publically claims rights to all of the maritime areas encompassed by what it calls its “nine-dashed line”. The Tribunal determined that the Convention comprehensibly allocates the maritime rights of States. Any pre-existing “historic rights” to resources were extinguished upon the entry into force of the Convention.
The Tribunal also found that, in any event, there was no evidence that China historically had exercised exclusive control in the South China Sea. Thus there was neither a legal nor a historical basis for China’s claims to large swathes of the South China Sea, including areas to which the Philippines and some of the observer littoral States instead were entitled.
The Tribunal also ruled against China on a range of other important matters under the Convention and reminded China of its obligation to comply with international law.
The status of maritime features and the entitlement generated by these features
First, the Tribunal determined that none of the features claimed by China in the South China