Resolving the WPS dispute

When America turned a blind eye to China’s illegal occupation of our Panganiban (Mischief) Reef in 1995, I had just written an assessment of the claims of each country contesting the territorial sovereignty over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Or the West Philippine Sea (WPS) as we call it now. My academic paper hinged on a public international law principle governing conflicting claims to land territories: which state has the superior claim and not which one has a title (Hersch Lauterpacht). It was part of my requirements for my Master of Laws degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

It happened 27 years ago. Regrettably, I have observed that much of the scholastic discourse from the claimant states of the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei has stagnated on the same issues. There has been a dearth of literature advocating dispute resolution to this geopolitical conflict.

Therefore, I was glad to have presented a 10-point proposed solution to the WPS dispute in the recently concluded Symposium on Global Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance in Sanya, China. I am the first to admit that the proposal is far from perfect. Nevertheless, I hope it will somehow lead to serious engagement and action among the claimants that favor peaceful and long-lasting solutions to the problem.

The claimants must go beyond finalizing a code of conduct (COC) in the WPS among the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member-states and China. In 2012, the countries signed a declaration on the conduct of parties, which called for self-restraint in inhabiting the uninhabited geographical features in the WPS. We lost control of the Panatag or Scarborough Shoal that same year. Thereafter, China has repeatedly blocked or attacked government and private shipping vessels with water cannons and military-grade lasers. The superpower has also constructed islands and installations on seven features, two of which fall within the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ). For instance, the 2016 Arbitration Tribunal said China’s artificially built island at Mischief Chief had violated our country’s sovereign rights.  

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