Explanation of a territorial dispute in south china sea.

1. Presented by:
ZUMRA NAWAZ CHEEMA

2. The South China Sea extends from the southern tip of China
and encompasses an area through which 40 per cent of the
world's trade passes.
This area includes the Strait of Malacca, which is an important
passage for oil imports into the region.
The Sea is also home to rich fishing areas and potentially great
undersea oil deposits. Five countries, Brunei, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan, claim ownership over part of
the sea

4. The areas within the South China Sea under dispute include a number of islands and other
rock formations. The South China Sea consists of four groups of islands:
 The Pratas Islands, located 200 miles south of Hong Kong, are claimed by China and
Taiwan.
 The Paracel Islands are also located in the northern part of the Sea and are claimed by
Vietnam, China, and Taiwan. China took the Paracel Islands from Vietnam by force in
1974.
 Scarborough Reef is located 130 miles from the Philippine island of Luzon and is
claimed by China, Taiwan and the Philippines.
 The Spratly Islands are located in the centre of the Sea. They are claimed in their
entirety by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and claimed in part by Malaysia, Brunei, and the
Philippines.

6. The risk of conflict in the South China Sea is significant. China, Taiwan,
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines have competing
territorial and jurisdictional claims, particularly over rights to exploit the
region's possibly extensive reserves of oil and gas. Freedom of
navigation in the region is also a contentious issue, especially between
the United States and China over the right of U.S. military vessels to
operate in China's two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

7. Owing to rising tensions between U.S and China and among China and
other competing countries China has embarked on a substantial
modernization of its maritime paramilitary forces as well as naval
capabilities to enforce its sovereignty and jurisdiction claims by force if
necessary. At the same time, it is developing capabilities that would put
U.S. forces in the region at risk in a conflict, thus potentially denying
access to the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific.

8. There are three major concerns of U.S upon which conflict could
escalate between U.S and China.
 a clash stemming from U.S. military operations within China's
EEZ that provokes an armed Chinese response.
 conflict between China and the Philippines over natural gas
deposits, especially in the disputed area of Reed Bank,
located eighty nautical miles from Palawan.
 disputes between China and Vietnam over seismic surveys or
drilling for oil and gas could also trigger an armed clash.

9. The Philippines initiated proceedings against the China in Permanent Court of
Arbitration (PCA) under Annex VII to United Nations Convention on Law of
Sea(UNCLOS) in 2006. The Notification and Statement of Claim outlines the
Philippines’ grievances against China and legal base for its claims, as well as
discusses the nature of the various maritime features in question. It states
that the Philippines is seeking a ruling that declares that claims in the South
China Sea must comport with UNCLOS, which would invalidate China’s nine-
dash line; classifies maritime features occupied by China as rocks, low tide
elevations, or submerged banks, but not islands; and declares the Philippines’
right to operate inside of its EEZ and continental shelf as outlined by
UNCLOS without Chinese harassment.

10.  On 19 February 2013, China officially refused to participate in the arbitration
because, according to China, its 2006 declaration under article 298 covers the
disputes brought by the Philippines and that this case concerns sovereignty, thus it
deems the arbitral tribunal formed for the case has no jurisdiction over the issue
 . On 7 December 2014, a position paper was published by China to elaborate its
position. On 29 October 2015, the arbitral tribunal ruled that it has jurisdiction over
the case, taking up seven of the 15 submissions made by the Philippines.
 On 12 July 2016, the tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines against China
over territorial disputes in the South China Sea; in its major ruling, the tribunal
ruled that China has "no historical rights" based on the "nine-dash line" map.
China has rejected the ruling, as has Taiwan.

11. The Tribunal unanimously granted all but a handful of Manila’s claims, and
in doing so laid down a significant number of rulings that will reshape the
discourse over the SCS disputes in the years to come.
• First and foremost, the Tribunal definitively characterized and then
struck down the most expansive of all the various claims to the SCS:
China’s historic rights claims, as represented by the ‘nine-dash line’
map.
• the Tribunal comprehensively characterized all of the features in the
Spratly Islands region and Scarborough Shoal.

12.  the Tribunal found that China’s interference with Filipino fishing and
petroleum exploration activities, construction of artificial islands, and failure
to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the Philippines’ EEZ, were all
in violation of the Philippines’ sovereign rights over its EEZ and continental
shelf.
 the Tribunal found that by creating artificial islands, China violated its
obligations to refrain from taking actions that cause permanent and
irreparable harm to the marine environment and acted prejudicially against
the rights of the Philippines.

13. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier said it was against imposing
the tribunal's ruling on China because Article 298 of UNCLOS allows a
country to refuse to accept it.
"Pakistan opposes any unilateral imposition of decisions on others,"
ministry spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said adding, "We respect China's
statement of optional exception in the light of the Article 298 of the UN
clause".