William Hung
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2013
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Hey, please learn the differences among:
the SCS Arbitration court,
( Hamburg ) International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,
International Court of Justice,
( Hague ) PCA ( pernament court of arbitration )
Dont mess up all to talk together, all you said seems correct, but their relation is apple and orange.
This SCS arbitration is not UNCLOS convention.
I did not even mentioned ITLOS or the ICJ in my post, nor do I need to. It is you that need to understand more about UNCLOS.
When there are a certain type of disputes between signatories of UNCLOS (which include China), there is a compulsory dispute settlement mechanism that a dispute party can invoke, which include ITLOS, ICJ or an abitration tribunal:
SECTION 2. COMPULSORY PROCEDURES ENTAILING BINDING DECISIONS
Article 286
Application of procedures under this section
Subject to section 3, any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention shall, where no settlement has been reached by recourse to section 1, be submitted at the request of any party to the dispute to the court or tribunal having jurisdiction under this section.
Article 287
Choice of procedure
1. When signing, ratifying or acceding to this Convention or at any time thereafter, a State shall be free to choose, by means of a written declaration, one or more of the following means for the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention:
(a) the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea established in accordance with Annx VI;
(b) the International Court of Justice;
(c) an arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex VII;
(d) a special arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex VIII for one or more of the categories of disputes specified therein.
ITLOS and ICJ is not necessary because the Philippines chose option (c), to establish an arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Anx VII. This Abitration tribunal was located in the Hague.
What is Anx VII? It is this:
http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/annex7.htm
Basically it is provisions under UNCLOS to establish an arbitration tribunal as a dispute settlement mechanism. The thing to note about this provision is that the ruling and judgment of the abotration tribunal is final, and even if one party refused to participate, it can still continue proceed to settle the dispute.
So you are wrong my dear, this arbitration tribunal was indeed established legally under the provisions of UNCLOS.