We celebrate this week the 10th anniversary of the landmark July 12, 2016 Arbitral Award which gave the Philippines a sweeping victory in defending its sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea against China.
There are two core issues decided in the July 12, 2016 Arbitral Award. First, China’s 9, now 10-dash line cannot claim waters or maritime resources in the South China Sea. Claims to historic rights beyond the territorial sea have been extinguished by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). States can only claim, beyond the territorial sea, waters and resources based on the provisions of UNCLOS.
Second, an island above water at high tide is entitled to a 200 nautical mile (NM) Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) only if the island can sustain, at a proper standard, a stable community of people based on the natural resources of the island. Desalination plants or imported garden soil do not count. None of the islands in the Spratlys is habitable based on these criteria and thus none of these islands is entitled to a 200-NM EEZ.
Consequently, there are no overlapping EEZs between the Philippines and China even assuming, for the sake of argument, that China has a valid claim, which it does not, to the Spratlys. The Philippines has a 200-NM EEZ in the West Philippine Sea unimpaired by China’s 10-dash line. Therefore, there are high seas between the EEZs of the Philippines and China. The 200-NM EEZ of the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea excludes high-tide features and territorial seas within this 200-NM EEZ.
