The Philippines is leaving the decision to all claimant countries
whether or not they would join Manila in the arbitration case it filed
against China over the disputed territories in the South China Sea (West
Philippine Sea).
Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Raul Hernandez said that the
Philippines based its filing of the case challenging China’s nine-dash
claim on its assessment of the country’s national interest.
“Other countries will also have to make a decision on this based on
the assessment of their national interest and we will respect their
decision on this,” he said.
Hernandez made the statement after Solicitor General Francis
Jardeleza said on Thursday that it would help if other countries with
their own territorial issues with China would file their own cases or
make a formal request to join Manila’s case.
Aside from the Philippines and China, other claimant countries to the
disputed territories are Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei
Darrusalam.
The Philippines was given a deadline of March 30, 2014 to submit its
arguments or Memorial to the United Nations-backed International
Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (Itlos) on its dispute with China.
The memorial will contain the legal basis of its arbitration case
against China to be reviewed by the five-member arbitral tribunal at The
Hague.
The Memorial is being prepared by the Philippines’ legal team headed by Jardeleza.
After its submission in March, the DFA said it is “open to future
instructions coming from the arbitral tribunal” with regards to its next
move.
The department expects the tribunal to decide on the jurisdiction and
merits of the case, especially on why Manila wants the nine-dash line
claim by Beijing invalidated and declared as cillegal as far as
international law, particularly the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
(Unclos), is concerned.
The Philippines invited China to join the arbitral proceedings on January 22 last year, but Beijing rejected the invitation.
Manila filed the arbitration case to ask the tribunal to clearly
delineate the extent of China’s and the Philippines’ claims in the
disputed region.
The Philippine government wants the five-member tribunal to
invalidate Beijing’s “encompassing” nine-dash line claim, which covers
90 percent of the entire region and extending as far as the coastal
provinces of the other claimant-countries.
Meanwhile, The Association of the Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) and
China is set to meet on March 18 to hold the 10th Joint Working Group
Meeting on the Implementation of the Declaration of the Conduct of
Parties in the South China Sea.
The meeting will be held in Singapore is expected to be attended by a
representative from China and Asean bloc member-states Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar,
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying had said that
Beijing is open to the formulation of the COC and is in constant
communication with ASEAN countries.
“China is ready to work with ASEAN countries to maintain the hard-won
momentum, carry on with the full and effective implementation of the
DOC and actively press ahead with the consultation on the COC in a
steady manner,” Hua said.
The framework of the COC is the Asean’s non-binding Declaration on the Code of Conduct which was signed in 2002.
Based on the Declaration Conduct, a non-binding document, all
signatories are directed to “exercise self-restraint in the conduct of
activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace
and stability including, among others, refraining from action of
inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays,
and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive
manner.”
As this developed, United Kingdom Ambassador to the Philippines Asif
Ahmad said that other countries are also waiting for the Itlos ruling on
the case that Manila filed on South China Sea dispute.
Ahmad said that although he does does not want to speak on behalf of
other countries, he said that the UK and other members of the
international communities adopt the same stance over the dispute.
source: Manila Standard
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