The Analysis Of The Rulings By The Tribunal Concerning Historic Rights Claims In South China Sea Arbitration

Since the beginning of the dispute in the South China Sea region,the issue of"historic rights" advocated by China based on the Dashed-Line has been widely concerned by the world.Relevant countries,trying to challenge China's Dashed-Line,aim at denying the legitimacy of "historic rights" advocated by China in the South China Sea.On 22 January 2013,the Philippines filed the compulsory arbitration proceedings against China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(hereinafter referred to as "the Convention").Its first and second claims are requesting the arbitral tribunal to adjudicate China's historic rights on the basis of the Dashed-Line and declare that the "historic rights" of the claims are invalid.The arbitral tribunal made a "ruling" on 12 July 2016 and supported the Philippine's claims,which declared that the claims of China's historic rights in the South China Sea violated the Convention and thus had no legal effect.The ruling weakens China's historic claims in the South China Sea.In order to deal with this challenge,this paper combs and studies this part of the arbitral tribunal's ruling on historic rights,and try to make an objective examination of the ruling in the light of the historic rights theory and the related jurisprudences in general international law.After that,efforts have been made to find out the limitations of "historic rights" claimed by China for the maintenance of maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea region,and put forward some specific countermeasures to enhance the possibility of winning our historic claims in the South China Sea.Following the first chapter which introduces the claims of the Philippines,the Chinese responses and the relevant,arbitral tribunal's decisions,the second chapter analzes the arbitral tribunal's ruling on the jurisdiction of the Filipino historic rights claims,focusing on the decisions of the arbitral tribunal in determining:whether the historic rights claims "concern" the interpretation or application of the Convention(Article 288(1)),whether the parties to the dispute had chosen any other peaceful means to settle their dispute and to exclude other proceedings(Article 281),whether the parties to the dispute had exchanged views(Article 283),whether other remedies have been exhausted(Arts.286 and 295)and whether the issues have been excluded by the exception of Article 298 of the Convention.The third chapter examines the merits of the Filipino Submissions No.1 and 2,and analyzes the decisions made by the arbitral tribunal about some issues:the legal status of the Convention,the conceptual distinction between historic rights,historical waters and historic titles,the standards constructing historic rights and the relationship between historic rights and the Convention.Then,the fourth chapter examines the effect the ruling may have on China and rethinks the potential limitations of "historic rights" advocated by China in the South China Sea through the study of the comments of the ruling made by scholars.The fifth chapter puts forward some possible countermeasures.Finally,concluding section summarizes the main ideas.