All up to claimants — PH

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