The ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Maritime Cooperation, adopted at the 48th Summit in Cebu on May 8, 2026, referred to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) no fewer than 18 times, reaffirming the key principles of peace and stability, the peaceful settlement of disputes and compliance with UNCLOS.
Yet ASEAN has never officially recognized the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award issued by an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII of UNCLOS – the very convention that ASEAN itself has repeatedly affirmed as the comprehensive legal framework governing all activities at sea.
July 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of the arbitral ruling in favor of the Philippines in its case against China concerning the South China Sea. How will ASEAN respond to this important legal milestone?
ASEAN’s Historical Response to the 2016 Award
Immediately after the 2016 South China Sea award, ASEAN failed to forge a unified stance. At the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) held in Vientiane, just two weeks after the judgment, member states could not reach a consensus to include any direct reference to the ruling in the joint communiqué. According to Philippine officials, every proposed reference was vetoed by a member state without explanation or counter-proposal. The same pattern reappeared at the 30th ASEAN Summit in Manila in 2017 and in subsequent years. Nearly a decade on, ASEAN is still struggling to reach any consensus regarding the 2016 award.
