Experts say arbitration futile, advise Manila to return to talks

The Philippines has filed a case against China in the The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration over the South China Sea dispute. But on June 26-27, just days before the court is expected to give its ruling, a group of scholars and experts of international law from China, the United States, the Netherlands, India and other countries participated in a seminar in a hotel just blocks away from the PCA in The Hague to discuss the South China Sea arbitration case and international rule of law. The discussion was organized by Leiden University's Grotius Center for International Legal Studies and the Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies of Central China's Wuhan University.

Five of the legal experts, including Abdul Koroma, former judge of the United Nation's International Court of Justice, held a press conference to question the PCA's questionable acceptance of Manila's case.

The experts, some of whom have worked as legal advisers to governments and, on some occasions, as arbitrators in the international disputes, agreed that the arbitral tribunal on the South China Sea was not set up with the consent of the disputing parties even though it claimed to have followed the rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.