The landmark Philippines v China ruling marked its fifth anniversary on 12 July 2021. In its decision, the arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) made four key observations.
First, it judged that no land feature in the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal were an ‘island’ within the meaning of Article 121 of UNCLOS. The tribunal interpreted the definition of a ‘rock’ — a feature that ‘cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of [its] own’ — as one that effectively hasn’t sustained a settled community of intergenerational habitation or economic life.
Beijing’s creative compliance and non-compliance in the South China Sea (eastasiaforum.org)
