Int’l law has supreme role to play in resolving disputes: Russian experts

The ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), based in The Hague (the Netherlands), in July 2016 became an important milestone in the history of territorial disputes in the East Sea, and international law plays the supreme role in resolving these disputes, according to some Russian experts.

Sinh Ton island

Dr Alexander Korolev and Dr Irina Strelnikova from Russia’s Higher School of Economics made the comment in an article published on the website of the Russian International Affairs Council on July 1.

They cited the PCA’s ruling as concluding that China’s claims of its “historic rights” and jurisdiction over the waters in the East Sea run counter to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and exceed the geographic and substantive limits of China’s maritime entitlements.

The writing affirmed the arguments that China used are not reflected in the principles of international law and thus unable to be considered the excuse for its refusal to implement the PCA’s verdict.

The authors also underlined the role of international law in settling disputes among parties in the East Sea, noting that UNCLOS is the most legally binding for all the parties to the convention.

They held that UNCLOS is the legal source replacing any historic right, sovereign right, or jurisdiction that China used to deal with the East Sea disputes.

The article also highly valued ASEAN countries actively discussing the necessity to replace the outdated Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), signed in 2002, by a Code of Conduct (COC) in the waters - a legally binding tool that will serve as the foundation for managing disputes in the East Sea./.

VNA