Filtered By: Topstories
News
CITES 2016 TRIBUNAL RULING

Philippines objects to Malaysia, China claims on South China Sea


The Philippines has rejected the submissions made by China and Malaysia before the United Nations (UN) on territorial claims in the South China Sea, highlighting the 2016 ruling of an international tribunal.

In a note verbale sent to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres dated March 6, 2020, the Philippine Permanent Mission to the UN cited the Tribunal’s ruling that rejected China’s claims to South China Sea, and the United Nations Convention in the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that allocates maritime rights to states.

The letter was in response to a December 12, 2019 submission by Malaysia to the UN that seeks to extend the limits of its continental shelf in the disputed sea.

The Philippines said Malaysia’s claims covered features within the Kalayaan Island Group over which the country has sovereignty.

“The area also overlaps with the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea of the Republic of the Philippines is measured, and over which the Government of the Republic of the Philippines intends to make a submission at a future time,” it said.

“Moreover, the Malaysian submission is projected from portions of North Borneo over which the Republic of the Philippines has never relinquished its sovereignty,” it added.

Responding to Malaysia’s submission, China insisted in December 2019 that it has “historic rights in the South China Sea,” according to a Reuters report.

The Philippine Mission said, “On the features in the South China Sea, the Republic of the Philippines has sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo de Masinloc.”

It said that on maritime entitlements, the Tribunal ruled that “none of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands generate entitlements to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.”

The Philippine representatives also stressed that the Tribunal did not agree with an “assertion that the Spratly Islands should be enclosed within a system of archipelagic or straight baselines, surrounding high tide features of the group, and accord an entitlement to maritime zones as a single unit.”

“The Tribunal ruled that claims to historic rights or sovereign rights or jurisdiction that exceed the geographic and substantive limits of maritime entitlements under UNCLOS, are without lawful effect,” the Philippine Mission added. 

Aside from the Philippines and China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan also have claims in the South China Sea.

China claims a huge swathe of the South China Sea as part of its territory, but the tribunal in The Hague invalidated this claim in July 12, 2016 following a case filed by the Philippines in 2013.

Beijing has ignored and belittled the ruling, insisting it has “indisputable” and “historical” claim over nearly the entire waters even as it encroaches on the territories of its smaller neighbors like the Philippines. —LDF, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT