MANILA, Philippines – One of the Philippines’ top legal scholars said that the international tribunal hearing Manila’s historic case against China “totally ignored” Beijing’s controversial 9-dash line.
Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said that The Hague-based arbitral tribunal did not consider the 9-dash line in its initial ruling on jurisdiction, the first round of the Philippines’ case against China on the South China Sea. Manila calls the parts it claims as the West Philippine Sea.
The United Nations (UN)-backed tribunal issued the ruling on Thursday, October 29.
China uses the 9-dash line to claim almost the entire sea without explaining its legal basis or providing coordinates. The Philippines is asking the tribunal to strike down the 9-dash line as inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the constitution for seas and oceans.
“The 9-dash lines are totally ignored. The tribunal did not consider the 9-dash line. That is an indication of how they will rule. The 9-dash line has no meaning at all, no effect at all,” Carpio said in a media forum in Quezon City.
Carpio made the statement in reference to the ruling on the Philippine claim that one of the features in the sea, Scarborough Shoal, is merely a rock entitled to a 12 nautical-mile territorial sea, and not an island with a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
This was among 7 out of 15 Philippine claims where the tribunal ruled that it has jurisdiction or the power to decide the case. The tribunal deferred ruling on 7 other claims as these were related to the merits of the case while it asked the Philippines to clarify one claim.
Carpio said that the tribunal found jurisdiction on the Scarborough Shoal claim because this did not involve sovereignty or sea boundary delimitation, China’s two main objections.
Interpreting the ruling, the justice said: “If you look at the map, Scarborough Shoal is within the 9-dash line but the tribunal said we have complete jurisdiction. What’s the meaning? The 9-dash lines do not generate a maritime zone that overlaps with the Philippine EEZ (Extended Continental Shelf).”
He added: “This implies that if Scarborough Shoal is merely a rock, the Philippines has a full 200 nautical-mile EEZ in the northern sector, excluding the territorial sea of Scarborough Shoal. The 9-dashed lines are totally ignored.”
The legal expert said that the initial ruling provided a “peep into the tribunal’s mind.”
“The existence of a dispute over these issues is not diminished by the fact that China has not clarified the meaning of the 9-dash line or elaborated on its claim to historic rights,” he said.
China seized Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012, sparking a standoff and prompting the Aquino administration to file the arbitration case against the Asian superpower in January 2013. The waters near the shoal are a traditional fishing ground of Filipino fishermen.
