© Associated Press
A protester displays a placard in front of riot police during a rally at the US Embassy to protest the visit of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday, July 27, 2016, in Manila, Philippines. The protesters are calling for the pullout of U.S. troops in the country under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA which was entered into by the Philippines and U.S. militaries.
A protester displays a placard in front of riot police during a rally at the US Embassy to protest the visit of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday, July 27, 2016, in Manila, Philippines. The protesters are calling for the pullout of U.S. troops in the country under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA which was entered into by the Philippines and U.S. militaries.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration's non-binding ruling on the territorial dispute between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines is largely misunderstood.
Sovereignty or ownership of disputed land formations were never going to be adjudicated or awarded as many Filipinos and Filipinas thought or were led to believe by the past and present leadership of the Philippines.
What the Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal studied were the geo-legal status definitions of the disputed territory. In part, the Chinese claim of sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing refers to as the Nansha Islands and Huangyan Island, respectively, is under dispute because of the status of the "adjacent waters." It is mainly the definition and legal status of the adjacent waters that Manila — and Washington — are concerned about, and what The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration examined. This is the crux of the matter.
Adjacent waters are a 12 nautical mile territorial (22 kilometers) stretch in bodies of water that extends from the shoreline of any land territory. The water that is within the 12 nautical miles of territory claimed by a specific country is to be legally treated as its internal waters or territorial sea. This alone gives Beijing control over a large swath of strategic water.
Moreover, Beijing's official position is that the Spratly/Nansha Islands are entitled to an exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and that China has legal control over the continental shelf under both Chinese domestic law and under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although a country and its government do not have sovereignty in their EEZ or on the continental shelf, they do have "sovereign rights" and jurisdiction over a distance of up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) for the purpose of exploring and developing the natural resources of the seabed and subsoil in these areas.
Comment: The Philippines clearly does not have a legal leg to stand on in the South China Sea dispute. To make matters worse, Washington has turned what would be a natural ally to China into a hostile bickering neighbor. What a shame that that nations like Japan and the Philippines, who have suffered so greatly under the United States, continue to allow themselves to be used and abused through destructive alignment with Western 'principals'.