EDITORIAL - Rules-based order

Eight years ago today, the atmosphere was funereal in the corridors of power in the Philippines. This was in contrast to public celebration over the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which defined the Philippines’ sovereign rights and maritime economic entitlements in the West Philippine Sea, based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS. The PCA ruling also invalidated China’s expansive nine-dash-line claim over nearly the entire South China Sea.

Beijing refused to participate in the arbitration despite being a party to UNCLOS like the Philippines, although it submitted a position paper stating that three international treaties governed Philippine territory: the Treaty of Paris, Treaty of Washington and a pact with Britain defining the Philippines’ southern borders. Retired Supreme Court senior associate justice Antonio Carpio has said that in invoking the Treaty of Washington, China has inadvertently recognized the Philippines’ maritime claims in the WPS.

Because the PCA ruling was based on an international treaty, the Philippines should have moved quickly to promote global support for compliance. Instead the kowtowing to Beijing of the Duterte administration, which even trumpeted its pivot to China, slowed down the effort.

Today, under the Marcos administration, the Philippines is moving to recover lost ground and drum up that crucial international support. The Group of Seven has issued two communiques calling for a rules-based international order and condemning China’s construction of artificial islands and harassment of Philippine vessels within the country’s sovereign waters as defined by UNCLOS. The European Union as a grouping and several of its individual members as well as Australia have issued related statements.

The previous administration, in downplaying the significance of the arbitral award, often warned that the Philippines could not afford war with China in seeking compliance with the ruling. The Philippines, however, is not pushing for armed confrontation; the Constitution specifically declares that the country renounces war as an instrument of national policy. All that the Philippines wants is mutual respect for territorial and maritime rights, as defined by international law. Such claims cannot simply be plucked out of thin air; to promote global order, they must be based on international rules. The arbitral ruling provided the basis for such claims in the South China Sea, and must be respected by all responsible states.