{"id":4504,"date":"2016-07-13T20:53:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T20:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4504"},"modified":"2016-07-13T20:53:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T20:53:40","slug":"philippines-wins-arbitration-case-vs-defiant-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4504","title":{"rendered":"Philippines wins arbitration case vs. defiant China"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>The arbitration court in The Hague has finally ruled in favor of the Philippines <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong> <\/strong><strong>The Tribunal said there is no legal basis in China\u2019s historic claims and that it<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>China is now under international pressure to accept the ruling or face the<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> possibility of being branded an international outlaw<!--more--><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It has finally been decided that the Philippines has exclusive sovereign right to the West Philippine Sea and that China\u2019s \u201cnine-dash line\u201d is invalid, according to the United Nations (UN) Arbitral Tribunal.<\/p>\n<p>The Tribunal issued its Award on July 12 after several months of hearings and submission of documents. China was absent throughout the proceedings, refusing to recognize the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the \u2018nine-dash line,\u201d the statement released to the media said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving found that none of the features claimed by China was capable of generating an exclusive economic zone, the Tribunal found that it could\u2014without delimiting a boundary\u2014declare that certain sea areas are within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, because those areas are not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>The Tribunal also said that China has violated Philippine sovereign rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving found that certain areas are within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, the Tribunal found that China had violated the Philippines\u2019 sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by (a) interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, (b) constructing artificial islands and (c) failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone,\u201d the tribunal statement said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Tribunal further held that Chinese law enforcement vessels had unlawfully created a serious risk of collision when they physically obstructed Philippine vessels,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>The Spratly Islands and its many reefs are being claimed by China under its \u201cnine-dash line\u201d claim that covers nearly the entire South China Sea including parts of the Philippines\u2019 Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).<\/p>\n<p>China insists it has \u201chistoric rights\u201d in asserting its ownership of the region believed to be rich in natural gas resources and also a vital trade route for international cargo ships.<\/p>\n<p>Philippines filed its case in January 2013 following a tense standoff between Chinese and Philippine ships at Scarborough shoal in April 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Since the initiation of the arbitration case, China has conducted several massive reclamation projects to turn submerged reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military structures and equipment.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s reclamation activities have alarmed other Southeast Asian nations, particularly Vietnam, that also have competing claims in the South China Sea. (<strong>Rappler<\/strong>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The arbitration court in The Hague has finally ruled in favor of the Philippines The Tribunal said there is no legal basis in China\u2019s historic claims and that it violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines China is now under international pressure to accept the ruling or face the possibility of being branded an international [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}