An international symposium to review the South China Sea Arbitration Awards, a ruling that challenged China's claims in the waters back in 2016, has been held in Qingdao on Thursday. During the event, Chinese and global legal scholars pushed back, calling the ruling invalid, and harmful to international law. Reporter Liu Jiaxin has the details.
Domestic and international scholars have come together to discuss the South China Sea Arbitration Awards, from the perspective of international law.
MA XINMIN Director General of Department of Treaty and Law Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Let's start with its first argument. The Convention encompasses all aspects of the law of the sea is a complete perversion of the Convention."
Ma said continental states' outlying archipelagos constitute a distinct category of national territory, recognized by international law. He said the legal status of archipelagos as units, and their maritime rights, are well-established principles of customary international law that predate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and that they should be fully respected.
ANTHORY CARTY Professor, Peking University "On the main issue of archipelagos, the tribunal simply said that because there was nothing in the convention about the archipelagos attaching to continental state, therefore the convention had deliberately excluded the right of continental states to claim archipelagos. But the evidence in the practice of states has been appointed out just now by Mr. Ma, the Foreign Ministry legal advisor, but the tribunal simply didn't consider that. So I think the judgment of the tribunal is bizarre."
SHI YUBING Professor and Vice Dean of South China Sea Institute Xiamen University "Whether you are a researcher in academia or a student who knows a little about the law of the sea, you can see that this ruling has major problems. The most obvious problem is that the tribunal has no jurisdiction. The dispute in this case is related to territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation. Territorial sovereignty is not regulated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and our country has excluded disputes over maritime delimitation through a declaration. Therefore, the tribunal has no jurisdiction over this case, which makes its ruling illegal and invalid."
LIU JIAXIN Qingdao, Shandong Province "At the symposium, experts elaborated from different perspectives on the common core idea, which is: there are errors in the South China Sea Arbitration Awards. The participants say it is not only harmful for China, but also has an indelible negative impact on the integrity, authority and fairness of the international rule of law. Liu Jiaxin, CGTN, Qingdao."
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