31 October 2014 – The Philippines’ recourse to international arbitration over the West Philippine Sea dispute received the support from academics and participants in a forum held on October 20 at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
The forum, titled “Sea of Discontent, a Roundtable on the South China Sea Dispute,” featured six expert academics of various backgrounds who took turns in presenting the many issues embedded in the disputes.
Dr. Cesi Cruz, a Filipino-American, and assistant professor at the UBC Institute of Asian Research and UBC Department of Political Science, dissected the Philippine position at the roundtable.
Dr. Cruz, who received her Ph.D in Political Science from the University of California in San Diego and her M.A. in Political Science at Canada’s McGill University, described the Philippines as being the “most behaved” among the West Philippine Sea claimant countries, by resorting to arbitration, peaceful settlement, and not making “extralegal claims” on any territory.
She defended the Philippine government’s move to bring the matter to arbitration within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
“The Philippines is justified in pursuing arbitration because China already occupies the disputed islands, anyway—if China wins, it will continue to occupy; but it the Philippines wins, China could either be persuaded to withdraw, or if it refuses to comply and continue to occupy the islands, it would be doing so clearly without legal basis,” she said.
Dr. Cruz was one of six expert panelists at the forum. The other panellists are Richard Paisley, director of the UBC Global Transboundary International Waters; Dr. Glen Hearns, principal at Aristods Consulting and co-director at the UBC Transboundary International Waters; Dr. Paul Schuler, post-doctoral fellow at the Stanford University; Professor Ian Townsend-Gault, associate professor at the UBC Faculty of Law and director of the UBC Southeast Asian Legal Studies; and Dr. Alexander Woodside, professor emeritus at the UBC Department of History.
The panelists agreed on a more assertive role for Canada in the region, the need for cooperation, the urgency of saving the environment; and the importance of international law. END