15 October 2015 – Should future policymakers allow China to cast aside the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) so that it can exercise its claim to so-called indisputable sovereignty to almost all of the South China Sea, and appropriate for itself large swaths of neighboring countries’ exclusive economic zones and continental shelf, like that of the Philippines?

In his lecture on Wednesday, October 07, on the “The South China Sea/West Philippine Sea Dispute,” Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio of the Supreme Court of the Philippines posed this challenge to international graduate students of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University.

The lecture was also attended by Columbia University and Seton Hall University faculty.

Justice Carpio is currently on a North American lecture tour to promote global public awareness of the Philippines’ position on the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea issue, and to engage in an in-depth and candid exchange of information and views on the origins, dimensions and implications of the current tensions around the South China Sea.

Justice Carpio expounded on the issues relating to the dispute, including the nature and legal questions concerning the arbitration case filed by the Philippines before an arbitral tribunal under Annex VII of UNCLOS. Using official documents, official pronouncements by claimant States, academic studies, and historical documents and maps, the lecture evaluated the merits of China’s so-called nine-dash line enclosing the South China Sea as its virtual territorial sea. Taking into account UNCLOS and customary international law, the lecture also discussed policy considerations relevant to the conflicting claims, including the perspective of the U.S. government.

In her report to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to the United Nations Lourdes Yparraguirre highlighted that the Columbia event was a student-led initiative, saying that Justice Carpio was invited by the Southeast Asian Student Initiative (SEASI), an accredited SIPA graduate student organization.

During the open forum moderated by Professor Ann Marie Murphy of Seton Hall University, questions ranged from the absence of sanctions against China, to possible benefits to other States of China’s military installations in the South China Sea, the lack of a genuine public debate within China on the origins and validity of the nine-dash line, and how the U.S. and ASEAN could contribute toward a peaceful resolution.

The day before, Justice Carpio delivered a similar lecture before diplomats, policy analysts and the Filipino community at the Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Center along Fifth Avenue, under the auspices of The Asia Society. END