Tribunal arbitration on S. China Sea neither fair not just

By dragging the South China Sea dispute to arbitration, the Philippines has made a politically provocative move under the cloak of law. At the end of October, in disregard to basic facts and fundamental jurisprudence, the Arbitral Tribunal set up at the unilateral request of the Philippines rendered the award on jurisdiction and admissibility of the arbitration. Confounding black and white, the Tribunal spared no effort in backing up the Philippines' arguments, and thus rendered support and encouragement to the Philippines' illegal occupation of China's territory and encroachment upon China's maritime rights and interests.

Fraught with far-fetched and unfounded assumptions, the reasoning process of the Tribunal was by no means based on facts, common sense or justice, and its positions were neither fair nor impartial.

What has truly happened cannot be covered up by an arbitration that ignores facts. The Tribunal deliberately framed the previous consultations between China and the Philippines on disputes over territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation as consultations on the interpretation and application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and affirmed these consultations as evidence that the Philippines had fulfilled its obligation of exchange of views.