South China Sea Arbitration

The Republic of the Philippines v. The People's Republic of China
Registered with the Permanent Court of Arbitration
Court	An arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
Full case name	An Arbitration before an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea between the Republic of the Philippines and the People's Republic of China
Decided	12 July 2016
Citation	PCA Case No. 2013-19
Transcript	https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/7/
Ruling
China's historic rights claims over maritime areas inside the "nine-dash line" have no lawful effect if they exceed what is entitled to under UNCLOS There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within "nine-dash line" UNCLOS does not provide for a group of islands such as the Spratly Islands to generate maritime zones collectively as a unit China had breached its obligations under the convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea and Article 94 of UNCLOS concerning maritime safety China violated its obligations to refrain from aggravating or extending the parties disputes during the pendency of the settlement process
Court membership
Judges sitting	Presiding Arbitrator: Thomas A. Mensah Members: Jean-Pierre Cot Rüdiger Wolfrum Alfred H. Soons Stanisław Pawlak

The South China Sea Arbitration (Philippines v. China, PCA case number 2013–19)^[1] was an arbitration case brought by the Republic of the Philippines against the People's Republic of China (PRC) under Annex VII (subject to Part XV) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, ratified by the Philippines in 1984, by the PRC in 1996, opted out from Section 2 of Part XV by China in 2006^[2]) concerning certain issues in the South China Sea, including the nine-dash line introduced by the mainland-based Republic of China since as early as 1947.^[3][4][5] A tribunal of arbitrators appointed the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) as the registry for the proceedings.^[6]

On 19 February 2013, China declared that it would not participate in the arbitration.^[7] On 7 December 2014, it published a white paper to elaborate its position that, among other points, the tribunal lacks jurisdiction.^[8][9] In accordance with Article 3 of Annex VII of UNCLOS, the Philippines appointed 1 of the 5 arbitrators, while China did not appoint any.^[11] On 29 October 2015, the tribunal concluded that it had jurisdiction to consider seven of the Philippines' submissions, subject to certain conditions, and postponed the consideration of its jurisdiction on the other eight submissions to the merits phase.^[12][13][14]

On 12 July 2016, the arbitral tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines on most of its submissions. It clarified that while it would not "rule on any question of sovereignty ... and would not delimit any maritime boundary", China's historic rights claims over maritime areas (as opposed to land masses and territorial waters) within the "nine-dash line" have no lawful effect unless entitled to under UNCLOS.^[15][16][17] China has rejected the ruling, as has Taiwan. As of November 2023^[update], 26 governments support the ruling, 17 issued generally positive statements noting the ruling but not called for compliance, and eight rejected it. The United Nations does not hold any position on the case or on the disputed claims.^[18]