Research On Legal Issues Of Territorial Baselines Of The Spratly Islands

In recent years, neighboring countries of the South China Sea have continued to stir up disputes in the South China Sea. They have occupied many islands and reefs,built facilities on the islands and reefs, exploited resources and conducted a series of activities to infringe our national sovereignty, such as joint military exercises. As we all know, the dispute in the South China Sea is an international problem involving seven parties of six countries, such as China, Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and so on, concerning many countries and the interests of these countries are very complicated. In addition to the participation in the Southeast Asian countries, some countries outside the region such as the United States, Russia, India, and Japan are also involved in the South China Sea disputes, making the South China Sea issue continues to heat up. The Parcel Islands have an straight baseline in the form of normative documents, but the Spratly Islands still have no territorial sea baseline for various reasons. In order to safeguard the sovereignty and maritime interests of our country, determining a territorial baseline for the Spratly Islands is imminent.This paper starts from problems in the process of delimiting the baselines of the Spratly Islands. Firstly, this paper define the legal status of the Discontinuous Line and propose several major legal issues, such as whether the island can be used as the starting point, which baselines to choose and other problems after the baseline. Secondly, the paper put forward view to explain the plan of how to determine the baseline of the Spratly Islands.The paper is divided into three parts. The first part is to conclude the disputes in the South China and to expore the legal nature of the Discontinuous Line. As to how to define the legal status of the Discontinuous Line, there are five major perspectives Each view has its advantages and disadvantages, but in contrast, the theory that the Discontinuous Line is island line is more reasonable. The second part is to discuss the main legal issues in the process of defining baselines. As to how to choose the the starting point, the paper analyze the role of the coast island delimitation between the states sea and the island in the adjacent or opposite states. And the straight baseline is determined. The third part is to propose the delineation program after solving the problems through the first two parts. The paper divided the Spratly Islands into several parts according to its location, and then propose my own recommendation.