Jurisprudential Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Environmental Cooperation Project In South China Sea And Its Enlightenment

Energy security is now one of the world’s foremost concerns, most particularly of developing states within the Asian region, so it is. Now, the countries and regions along the South China Sea just concentrate on energy resource, so do the papers and books of the countries and regions. The research about the protection of the islands and the reefs in the South China Sea is little. It’s almost a blank, but the protection of the islands and reefs is really important to China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. In other words, it’s future to these countries and their people. To me, I think the reason why these countries couldn’t, I mean couldn’t, not mean don’t want to, take measures to protect the islands and the reefs in the South China Sea is reflected in three aspects. Firstly, sovereignty issues are unresolved. The historical inability of claimant states to resolve their differing juridical positions does not necessarily reflect on the adequacy of international law. Rather, there has been a lack of political will to accept any compromise of respective claims to valuable resources and a deep reluctance to submit disputes to an international tribunal for a judicial ruling. Therefore, the jurisdiction of the islands and the reefs in the South China Sea are unresolved. Secondly, these countries are lack of the protection experience. For example, China’s islands and reefs protection legal system is not perfect. By contrast, Australia has a rich experience in protection. Thirdly, as these countries couldn’t reach a consensus on international cooperation, these countries don’t want to take on too much responsibility to protect. Because of the three reasons, the right and the power on the protection of the Spratly Islands are blank. It is a fact that it is not good for all these countries and areas.According to the UNCLOS (Article192), States have the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment. According to the UNCLOS (Article193), States have the sovereign right to exploit their natural resources pursuant to their environmental policies and in accordance with their duty to protect and preserve the marine environment. Even though this article says that states have the sovereign right to do something, according the principle of Chinese Government, suspend dispute, a cooperation solute the jurisdiction over the environment protection of the Spratly Islands is possible. States shall take all measures necessary to ensure that activities under their jurisdiction or control are so conducted as not to cause damage by pollution to other States and their environment, and that pollution arising from incidents or activities under their jurisdiction or control does not spread beyond the areas where they exercise sovereign rights in accordance with this Convention. The measures taken in accordance with this Part shall include those necessary to protect and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems as well as the habitat of depleted, threatened or endangered species and other forms of marine life.Cooperative Principle is the important principle of the joint development, at the same time, I think it could be the principle on common protection. First, in the cases of existing, joint development is the premise of the common protection. If not, the protection of islands would be a big economic burden. Second, in a lot of joint development agreements, there are some rules about the marine environment protection, such as the Timor Gap Treaty and the Memorandum on the Oil and Gas Resource Development in the Timor Sea. Not only do they cooperate in pollution prevention area, but also will they do cooperation on the protection of coral reef.Equality and mutual benefit is also the basic principle of cooperation. If the cooperation is not equality, the mutual benefit would not come ture. If the benefit is not mutual, the equal cooperation would not come ture. Sharing resource may be the most important interest between China and other countries along the SCS in the Spratly Islands area. Last but the most important, shelving sovereignty dispute is a major premise. Shelving sovereignty dispute doesn’t mean ignore the sovereign or give the sovereign up. Shelving sovereignty dispute can make a chance to solve the problem of sovereign better and protect the environment on the Spratly Islands better. For example, the case is the Joint Development Oil and Gas between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There is also a case called Joint Development in Iran and Sharjah. In1971, the government of Iran and the government of Sharjah made a memorandum of understanding. They built a system to jointly develop the resource, but they both never would give up the sovereignty of the AbuMusa Island. In1992, the memorandum of understanding between Vietnam and Malaysia made a deal that they would cooperate in developing the oil resources in dispute area. At the same time, they also claimed that joint development doesn’t mean they would not give up their claims. All the cases are good example to take a series of measures to protect the environment of the Spratly Islands, especially the reefs.