Now that Secretary Albert Del Rosario shares my view that the Scarborough Shoal dispute should be submitted to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) for peaceful resolution, the question is: how could the tribunal exercise jurisdiction without China giving its consent to do so?
The answer lies in the dispute settlement procedure of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). These provisions are not only very long, but are recognized by scholars as amongst the most complicated provisions of the convention.
In a nutshell, the provisions on dispute settlement were made part of the “package deal” that state parties agreed to be bound when they became parties to the UNCLOS. In an effort to make all of the provisions of the UNCLOS a restatement of customary international law, each and every provision of the convention were agreed upon by states on the basis of consensus, and not just by a vote of the majority. Consequently, not only did the UNCLOS become the longest treaty to negotiate, it also became unique because of the rule that parties thereto may not make reservations on any of its provisions, including those dealing with dispute resolution.
The ITLOS jurisdiction was made compulsory and mandatory on all state parties in all disputes arising from the “”interpretation or application of any provision in the Convention”. Because state parties to the Convention, including the Philippines and China, have already referred to the ITLOS these types of disputes, China need not give its consent anew if we were to bring the issue of the exercise of sovereign rights in Scarborough shoal, Recto Bank and even parts of the Spratly’s to the tribunal.
Notice though that while Scarborough dispute, because it is one over fishing rights in maritime territory may- be brought to the ITLOS even without the consent of China, the Spratly’s controversy, on the other hand, would still require China’s consent. The reason is simple: because the Scarborough issue is purely a dispute involving water, it may be resolved wholly under the UNCLOS and as such, is an issue arising from an “interpretation” of the Convention’s provisions on sovereign rights. By definition, sovereign rights refer to the exclusive right of a state to explore and exploit all natural resources found in the waters of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is 200 nautical miles from the baseline of a country.
The issue in Scarborough is whether fishing by Chinese nationals there violates the sovereign right of the Philippines to exclusively engage in fishing in the area. A resolution of this issue would require the ITLOS to make a factual determination if the shoal is within the country’s EEZ and whether the shoal, as China claims, is an island. If it were indeed an island, yet an issue to be resolved would be whether it is entitled to other maritime zones or just a 12 nautical mile territorial sea. In either case, the primordial issue would be which nation should be allowed to fish in the area of the disputed shoal.
The Spratly’s dispute, on the other hand, is one that involves conflicting claims to both land and water territory. As such. UNCLOS cannot be the sole applicable law for the obvious reason that it deals only with maritime territories. The territorial dispute to the islands are subject to the rule they should pertain to the state that can prove a superior claim in terms of effectivities, or the exercise of the rights and obligations borne out of the exercise of sovereignty over disputed land territory. As such, disputes over islands are disputes beyond the “interpretation” of the UNCLOS rules on maritime territory. This is why China must consent anew to the exercise of jurisdiction by ITLOS in resolving the Spratly’s dispute. It is because conflicting claims to land territory do not involve issues of interpretation of the UNCLOS and are hence, are not subject to the mandatory and compulsory jurisdiction of the ITLOS.
Recent events have proven that we are no match to China in terms of military firepower. It was fool hardy for Filipino policy makers to think that BRP Gregorio Del Pilar, our one and only battleship, can drive Chinese fishermen away from the area. In any case, resort to the use of force to settle international disputes are prohibited by both the UN Charter and the UNCLOS. I am happy that Secretary Del Rosario has finally declared that instead of a military solution, we have opted for a peaceful and legal resolution of the dispute. In this manner, we may yet repeat the feat of a boy named David that slew a giant named Goliath.
(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on /2012/April/19)
