On July 12, 2016, an arbitral tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued its\u00a0ruling\u00a0in Manila\u2019s case against Beijing\u2019s claims in the South China Sea. Convened under the compulsory dispute settlement provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the tribunal\u2019s five arbitrators ruled overwhelmingly in the Philippines\u2019 favor.\u00a0 Beijing refused to participate in the arbitration and rejected the outcome. Meanwhile, the newly-inaugurated president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, downplayed the victory in the hopes of coaxing China toward a more conciliatory policy and, as a result, international pressure on China to comply with the award\u00a0has evaporated. The ruling clarified important aspects of UNCLOS and customary international law, but there was never much hope Beijing would accept its findings. Nonetheless, many observers\u00a0hoped\u00a0that over time China might find politically face-saving ways to bring its claims and behavior into line with the substance of the ruling, even while rejecting the process. In the three years since the arbitral award, and since Manila\u2019s adoption of a more accommodating policy toward Beijing, has China moved any closer to compliance? AMTI has compiled a list of actionable findings from the tribunal and assessed whether China\u2019s recent actions are in-line with them. Overall, China is in compliance with just 2 of 11 parts of the ruling, while on another its position is too unclear to assess. In one of the two most far-reaching decisions in the case, the arbitrators found that \u201cthe Convention [UNCLOS] defines the scope of maritime entitlements in the South China Sea, which may not extend beyond the limits imposed therein\u201d (Judgement, para. 278). This means that \u201cChina\u2019s claims to historic rights, or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction, with respect to\u2026the \u2018nine-dash line\u2019 are contrary to the Convention and without lawful effect\u201d if they extend beyond the territorial sea, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and continental shelf to which it is entitled by UNCLOS (para. 279). Nevertheless, the day after the arbitral award was issued, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a\u00a0white paper\u00a0which insisted, \u201cIn addition [to internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, EEZ and continental shelf], China has historic rights in the South China Sea.\u201d In the last three years, Chinese officials have spoken less often about the nine-dash line as the basis of their claim over the South China Sea, but China continues to claim ill-defined historic rights to virtually all waters and seabed in the South China Sea. It is on this basis that Chinese\u00a0fishers operate\u00a0in the EEZs of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and on which Beijing objects to all\u00a0oil and gas operations within the nine-dash line, regardless of how far they lie from Chinese-claimed land features.<\/p>\n
The second key finding in the case was that neither Scarborough Shoal nor any of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands \u201care capable of sustaining human habitation or an economic life of their own\u201d and \u201care therefore legally rocks for purposes of Article 121(3) and do not generate entitlements to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf\u201d (paras. 643 and 646). This means that the only EEZs and continental shelves in the South China Sea are those generated by the coastlines of the surrounding states and, possibly, some of the Paracel Islands. The Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal generate only a series of 12-nautical-mile territorial seas. Combined with the tribunal\u2019s rejection of China\u2019s claim to historic rights throughout the nine-dash line, this reduces the legally disputed areas around islands and reefs to the following: \u00a0