Bias, US influence in South China Sea ruling
Before accepting the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) that China’s occupation of the South China Sea is illegal, let us first look at the tribunal’s trustworthiness.
Unaffiliated with the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, the South China Sea tribunal is an arbitral panel predating the UN. Shunji Lanai, a Japanese judge who was at the time president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, appointed four of its five judges. The Philippine government appointed the fifth.
As in any arbitration, the judges must abide by a strict conflict-of-interest standard. Yet Japan is a long-time rival of China, including in the Spratly Islands dispute, and Shunji Lanai worked at the Japanese foreign ministry. He served as ambassador to the US from 1999-2001. Thus the tribunal is not the independent body it should be.
The main surprise of the ruling was probably that even inhabited Taiping Island, with an area of 110 acres and currently under Taiwan’s jurisdiction, was declared a “rock”. Early this year Ma Ying Jeou, then president of Taiwan, made a high-profile visit to Taiping to demonstrate that it qualifies as an island. A Philippine lawyer at the inquiry presented evidence showing that the water from Taiping’s freshwater wells is too salty for human consumption. Ma must regret not inviting the tribunal judges along on his trip so they could taste the water.
The tribunal’s dismissal of other nations’ historic claims to sovereignty among the islands was biased and unacceptable.
The US engineered the arbitration and is demanding that China strictly respect the law of the sea, but it is the only UN member-nation that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Yingwai
