Arbitration Mechanism For Dispute Settlement Under UNCLOS

The Republic of the Philippines submit the South China Sea dispute to the arbitral tribunal under UNCLOS and instituted arbitral proceedings against the People's Republic of China,which aroused people's focus on arbitration mechanism.As a maritime charter,UNCLOS has complete maritime dispute settlement mechanisms,among which the Annex VII is widely used in practice for arbitral procedures.It is not only a compulsory procedure entailing binding decisions chosen freely,but also the only way to reach consensus on settlement when there are no other ways.It is independent in use,and a preceding procedure for peaceful settlement.Any dispute can be submitted unilaterally and the ruling of arbitration cannot be executed compulsorily.The practice of arbitration procedure under Annex VII shows it has flaws,including overlapping jurisdiction,random appointments,ambiguous provisions and executions without guarantee.Modification of UNCLOS is practical in improving the arbitration mechanism.For the better use of the arbitration mechanism and for strengthening its weakness,the convention needs to settle the conflict of overlapping jurisdiction of international judicial institutions,provide more general standards such as the urgency of a situation,stipulate fair and reasonable constitution of arbitrators and adopt compulsory execution measures to ensure the implementation of interim measures.In order to avoid unfavorable rulings such as that in South China Sea Arbitration,China must adhere to its basic position,establish regional settlement mechanism and conduct negotiations to improve its mechanisms to deal with the arbitrations under Annex VII.