Lawyers do not see eye-to-eye on anything because they actually make a living out of disagreements. But according to one of the country’s foremost foreign affairs and economic analyst, with regards to the question of territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea, there is practically a general agreement among legal eagles, both here and abroad, that China’s “nine dash line” claim is in conflict with international law.
“I talked to top international lawyers and experts from New York, (Washington) DC to Hawaii,” said Prof. Richard Heydarian in a television interview Monday.
“It’s rarely that lawyers agree on anything, they make money out of disagreements. But on this issue practically there’s a consensus that the nine dash line is inconsistent.”
He pointed out that many lawyers argue that one can only claim historical rights over waters such as bays or coastal waters but not all the way into the high seas.
“In fact around 50 years ago, China itself in one of its documents conceded that South China Sea constitutes high seas,” said Heydarian who recently visited the US to discuss with government and university experts issues related to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and the South China Sea territorial dispute.
On the other hand, Heydarian described the Philippine strategy as “smart” considering that “UNCLOS is not just about certain sovereignty, it’s all about territorial delimitation.”
source: Manila Bulletin
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