The Philippines, is a claimant in the South China Sea maritime territorial dispute along with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, and the unrecognized claimant Taiwan.
The Philippines moved the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in January 2013 seeking arbitration on its 15-point submission (contentions against China).
The immediate context of this move was China’s increased military and non-military activities in the region such as patrolling, military infrastructure building, and exploitation of mineral resources, and other civil and commercial activities.
The submission by the Philippines can be classified in four major types:
China’s historic rights in the Sea and validity of its ‘nine-dash line’
The status of features in the disputed waters
The lawfulness of Chinese actions
The harm caused by China to the marine environment as well as its aggravation of the dispute
The Philippines has also challenged China’s constructions on some of the rocks and land features in the sea, asking the court to define them as “low tide elevations”, “rocks” or “islands” each of which have different implications in terms of EEZ.
