On The Legal Attributes Of Historical Rights In The South China Sea Intermittent Line

In order to safeguard China's maritime rights,The Chinese government has been advocating historical rights in the waters within the nine-dash line of the South China Sea.However,the Chinese government has not clearly defined the legal attribute of the historical rights.There are also different opinions on the relationship between the historical rights and the UNCLOS,customary international law and general principles of law.Under the circumstances,it is necessary for us to further explore the legal nature of the historical rights within the South China Sea Dash Line.The structure of this paper is as follows.In the first part,we put forward that the legal attribute of the historic rights is still vague,so that the necessity of discussing this is clear enough.In the second part,we would discuss the legal terms,legal connotations and legal concepts of the historic rights within the south china sea dash line.On this basis,we will define accurately the legal concept of the historic rights.In the third part,we will discuss the relationship between the historic rights and the UNCLOS.After the comparison between the historic rights advocated by the Chinese government and the historic bays,historic title and the traditional fishing rights,we can determine whether the historic rights are included in the UNCLOS.In the fourth part,we will discuss the relationship between the historic rights and customary international law.Through the identification of customary international law,we could judge whether the historic rights are customary international law.In the fifth part,we can briefly discuss the relationship between the historic rights and general principles of law.In the sixth part,we will summarize this paper and draw a conclusion.In my opinion,the historic rights advocated by the Chinese government is most likely to be a rule of customary international law.However,with the strengthening of the authority and comprehensiveness of the UNCLOS,there are more and more challenges towards the historic rights.In order to better safeguard China's maritime rights in the South China Sea,the Chinese government should clarify the legal nature of the historic rights through our domestic legislation.Besides,we also uphold actively the rules of customary international law relating to the historic rights in the international law.