Statement on the 5th Anniversary of the Issuance of the Award on the South China
Sea Arbitration
originally posted 23 June
2021
On July 12, 2021, we observe the fifth anniversary
of the Award on the South China Sea Arbitration.
The Award conclusively settled the status of historic rights and maritime
entitlements in the South China Sea. It declared as without legal effect claims
that exceed geographic and substantive limits of maritime entitlements under the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. So, it did not throw historic
claims out the window; it discriminated among them.
It dashed among others a nine-dash line; and any expectation that possession is
9/10ths of the law. Because the mere fact of possession produces no legal
effect, such as a territorial sea of any extent.
Thus, the Arbitral Award became and continues to be a milestone in the corpus of
international law. It is available to other countries with the same problematic
maritime features as ours. It puts one issue out of the way of conflict; because
there is nothing there taken by force that results in any gain in law.
In summary, the Award gives littoral states guideposts on how much waters their
features -- be they islands or rocks -- can generate, where their fishermen can
fish, where they can exercise law enforcement patrols, where they can send their
ships without permission from the nearest state, without creating a cause of
action or a casus belli between them.
It benefits the world across the board. We do not see it as directed at any
other country, near or far. We see it as it should be seen: as favoring all
which are similarly situated by clarifying definitively a legal situation beyond
the reach of arms to change. It puts this aspect of international law beyond the
limit of prescription.
President Rodrigo Duterte firmly pronounced at the UN General Assembly, that “it
is now part of international law, beyond compromise and beyond the reach of
passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon.” And so we celebrate the
occasion.
The Philippines is proud to have contributed to the international rules-based
order, to the affirmation of UNCLOS, and the strengthening of the legal order
over the seas.
The Award is final. We firmly reject attempts to undermine it; nay, even erase
it from law, history and our collective memories. Anniversaries are an occasion
to take stock of the past, mark the gains of the present, look to the future and
find ways to work together for mutual benefit since no singular advantage can be
gained by violating it.
We are also celebrating this our gift to all countries without exception. It is
a gift from a country that’s not a power except for right in law. In 2012 we
were David all alone, up against Goliath, amid hosts of indifferent spectators.
We had not a friend or ally; we were lucky to get any attention at all. And then
we prevailed; or rather right prevailed.
For the Arbitral Award was given to a set of maritime circumstances that would
be as true in our waters as in others’. It is the legacy that a-not-rich country
leaves to mankind along with a greater prospect of peace and cooperation.
Might does not make right. But then neither does right make might. Right alone
produces almost nothing: nothing but conviction. And that we have. That the rest
of the world is coming around to our point of view means as little to us now as
it did then when we fought alone. But my President has been more courteous by
saying at the UN: “We welcome the increasing number of states that have come in
support of the award and what it stands for -- the triumph of reason over
rashness, of law over disorder, of amity over ambition. This is the majesty of
law.”
The present that we need and the future that we want is a peaceful South China
Sea. The Philippines is committed to this for as long as it exists. For as long
as nations abide by the rule of law and not of military might, the Award is the
North Star that will keep us on course in the present, and that will point us
back to the right direction in the future should we, in a moment of weakness or
inaction, lose our way.
