Introduction Of Evidence Study On Sovereignty Of The South China Sea Islands

The sovereignty of the South China Sea Islands is the fundamental issue of the whole South China Sea issue. However, as the absence of direct regulation of treaty, in order to determine the sovereignty of these islands from legal point of view, we have to take the path of fact finding based on evidence study logically combined with relevant substantive law of territorial acquisition. Then how to determine the sovereignty of these islands on the basis of evidence analysis? This paper will discuss this issue from the following three aspects.The Introduction analyzes the necessity of evidence study for the sovereignty of South China Sea Islands and the formation process of research idea and because of which the body of this paper is divided into three parts. Afterwards, this part illustrates the reasons that this study is restricted to the emphasis on evidence practice of ICJ and the reasons why this paper being a preliminary discussion of the sovereignty of South China Sea Islands.The first chapter studies evidence analysis of the Pedra Branca Case between Singapore and Malaysia, arguing several questions the ICJ must take into consideration when finding facts and making a ruling based on evidence processing. Only the analysis and response to these questions can give a comprehensive study of the whole evidence study. The main body of this paper is composed of these questions. According to this, the existing studies about the sovereignty of South China Sea Islands only focus on one aspect or one specific issue of evidence study and no comprehensive study of evidence can be found in the existing study.The second chapter makes an analysis of evidence itself. Based on the division of evidence and the carrier of evidence, this part argues that the commonly called "evidence" should be defined as the carrier of evidence. Whereas,"the diversified cognition of the facts" abstracted and refined from these carriers of evidence can be used as "evidence" in the process of evidence analysis or judicial proof. In the meantime, as the carriers of evidence can be refined as diversified cognition or evidence, this part discusses the dual qualitative of treaty in the settlement of territorial boundary dispute:treaty can be applied as the legal ground of the rights and obligations relationship as well as the written evidence carrier in general. On the basis of the theoretical analysis, this part points out the simplification of evidence in the practical application of evidence as well as the current study of the sovereignty of the South China Sea Islands. The third chapter is about the analysis of evidence. An general introduction of the seven steps of evidence analysis is made, indicating that only applying the precisely designed seven step can evidence problem of the sovereignty of South China Sea Islands be accurately and effectively settled and predict the determination of the sovereignty of South China Sea Islands. In the specific application of the seven step analysis, this chapter only discusses the determination of the issue and the factum probandum, emphasizing that the concrete content of the relevant international substantive law can be expanded, and this expansibility can provide certain flexibility and maneuverability for the claim and argument of the countries involved.The fourth chapter dissects the evidence law. Because of the elitism of the judges and agents of the concerning countries who are involved and dominated litigious activities of the ICJ, and the judicial process of the ICJ is characterized by documented and relatively simple, so the required evidence provisions are relatively simple, namely, the function of certain evidence is substituted by the function of people. The most important is the relevance-oriented admissibility rule among all there similized rules. Starting from the relevance, combined with the previously discussed evidence extraction and analysis theory, many of the long-time advocated evidence by our country need further analysis and study.The final chapter of the paper firstly discusses how to apply evidence in the international judicial process and concludes that:firstly, evidence refining; secondly, the construction of evidence chain. Whereas the evidence law is relatively insignificance in this kind of process. Then the paper present some that need further research and pinpoints the insufficient of the currant study from the angle of methodology.