From the Business Mirror (Dec 1):
PHL to UN: End China’s ‘Berlin Wall of the Sea’
While President Aquino was marshaling global support in
Paris for countries most at risk from environmental threats and climate
change, the Philippine government—in closing arguments at The
Hague—highlighted the damage being caused by China’s sea constructions to one
of the most diverse marine environments in the world, asking the United Nations
tribunal to restrain it from creating a virtual “Berlin Wall of the
Sea,” according to a report sent to Palace reporters by Deputy Presidential
Spokesman Abigail Valte from the Netherlands.
Summing up the Philippines’s position as the Permanent Court
of Arbitration closed weeklong hearings on the merits of Manila’s case against
Beijing over China’s “excessive” nine-dash-line claim in the West Philippine
Sea (South China Sea), Foreign Secretary Albert F. del Rosario said “China’s
island building not only undermines regional stability, but also the rule
of law. It is moreover inflicting massive environmental damage on the most
diverse marine environment in the world.”
China,
del Rosario pointed out, “has intentionally created one of the biggest emerging
environmental disasters in the world.” Beyond this, he added, “the stakes are
still
greater” than just the Philippines’s interest, or those of other claimants in
the West Philippine Sea, 90 percent of which is being claimed by China under
the dubious nine-dash line. “The Convention’s ‘Constitution for the Oceans’ is
itself at risk,” said del Rosario, referring to the UN Convention on the Law of
the Sea, or Unclos.
“No state, no matter how powerful, should be allowed to
claim an entire sea as its own and to use force or the threat of force in
asserting that claim. No state should be permitted to write and re-write the
rules in order to justify its expansionist agenda. If that is allowed, the
convention itself would be deemed useless. Power will have prevailed over
reason, and the rule of law would have been rendered meaningless,” del Rosario
said.
The Philippine government’s legal team has made it “equally
clear that there is no issue of overlapping entitlements beyond 12-mile [limit]
in the South China Sea,” del Rosario said.
He recalled how, in the November 26 hearing, “Prof. Bernard
Oxman made clear what the practical consequences of deciding that even a single
feature in the Spratly
Islands generates
entitlement beyond 12 M would be. China
regards its entitlements in the South China Sea as excluding those of the Philippines and of Vietnam,
Malaysia, Indonesia and
Brunei Darussalam, as well.”
“It has no regard for the entitlements of other states. China is also
more than willing to use force and the threat of force to enforce its perceived
entitlements, even where it has none.”
At the closing session of the hearings of the merits, del
Rosario’s presentation was preceded by the final arguments made by Manila’s counsel, led by
Paul Reichler, working closely with Philippine Solicitor General Florin Hilbay.
Del Rosario also alluded to, in his summation, the key
arguments made by Oxman and Andrew Loewenstein, two experts called
in by Manila.
Loewenstein earlier presented eight ancient maps, one dating back to the Ming
Dynasty, which showed the territory it now insists on claiming was not in its
own map. They sought to demolish China’s claim of historic title and
rights.
“In our view,” said del Rosario in his summation remarks
before the PCA, “the Tribunal’s jurisdiction could not be clearer with respect
to declaring that China’s
claim to ‘historic rights’ in the areas encompassed by the nine-dash line is
inconsistent with Unclos.” He then recalled how Reichler, on the first day of
the hearings on Merits on November 24, had shown “that the historic rights that
China
claims are very different from a claim to ‘historic title’ that might be
precluded from jurisdiction under Article 298.”
Oxman and Loewenstein “showed that the regimes of the
continental shelf and exclusive economic zone under Unclos, and even general
international law, plainly exclude” China’s claim of “historic rights”
within the nine-dash line, del Rosario added.
Though he is not a lawyer, del Rosario noted, “in my mind,
when the convention says that the Philippines’s
rights in its continental shelf exist ipso facto and ab initio, and do not
depend on occupation, that means there is no room for China’s claim.
And when the convention speaks of an ‘exclusive’ economic zone, I take
exclusive to mean exclusive. That means it is ours, and what is ours is ours,
not China’s.”
The November 25 presentation by Prof. Philippe Sands showed
why the guidance of the UN court is crucial, the Department of
Foreign Affairs chief said. “With an assertiveness that is growing with every
passing day, China is
preventing us from carrying out even the most basic exploration and
exploitation activities in areas where only the Philippines can possibly have
rights.”
He said China,
by its actions, violates two key commitments by signatories in the preamble to
the UN Charter, which are “to establish conditions under which justice and
respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of
international law can be maintained,” and “to promote social progress and
better standards of life in larger freedom.” China
and the Philippines
are both among the 51 original signatories to the UN Charter.
Del Rosario explained his accusation that China fails on both counts: it fails, he said,
to “respect the obligations arising from treaties, specifically Unclos,” and is
also “interfering with the Philippines’s
sovereign duty to promote the social progress of our people, and our efforts to
achieve a better standard of life for all Filipinos.”
Besides the Filipinos, China’s
unilateral actions, “and the atmosphere of intimidation they have created, are
also trampling upon the rights and interests of the peoples of Southeast Asia and beyond,” del Rosario pointed out.
Its massive island-building campaign shows its utter
disregard for the rights of other states, and for international law, he argued,
and noted that China started
the island building “a year after the Philippines initiated the
arbitration,” underscoring the impunity. “It is intent on changing unilaterally
the status quo in the region, imposing China’s illegal nine-dash line
claim by fiat and presenting this Tribunal with a fait accompli.”
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/phl-to-un-end-chinas-berlin-wall-of-the-sea/
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