China has lost a key international legal case over strategic reefs and atolls that it claims would give it control over disputed waters of the South China Sea. The judgment by an international tribunal in The Hague chiefly in favour of claims by the Philippines will increase global diplomatic pressure on Beijing to scale back military expansion in the sensitive area.
By depriving certain outcrops – some of which are exposed only at low tide – of territorial-generating status, the ruling effectively punches a series of holes in China’s all-encompassing “nine-dash” demarcation line that stretches deep into the South China Sea. It declares large areas of the sea to be neutral international waters.
Beijing claims 90% of the South China Sea, a maritime region believed to hold a wealth of untapped oil and gas reserves and through which roughly $4.5tn of ship-borne trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also contest China’s claims to islands and reef systems close to their territory than Beijing’s.
Sporadic violence between Chinese vessels and those of south-east Asia militaries have broken out in recent decades and the verdict, the first international legal decision on the issue, could have unpredictable consequences.
The court case at the permanent court of arbitration in The Hague, the UN-appointed tribunal that adjudicates in international disputes over maritime territory, has been running since 2013.
The judgment does not allocate any of the outcrops or islands to rival countries but instead indicates which maritime features are capable under international law of generating territorial rights over surrounding seas.
[UK Guardian]
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