A tribunal at the Hague, or the U.N.’s International Court of Justice, is pretty upset by China’s use of the South China Sea—the country has been known to build artificial islands, do intensive marine damage and claim a large area of the sea that they have no legal right to. According to The New York Times, the Philippines brought this to the court’s attention since China has been encroaching on its waters. The tribunal responded by revoking China’s claim to most of the sea, which deals a serious blow to China’s interests.
What’s the issue? China claims to have historic rights to huge amounts of the South China Sea. But plenty of other countries are also close to those waters and have interests there—the Philippines, of course, but also Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, according to CNN. China’s been making a lot of moves in the sea that other countries don’t agree with. The tribunal agreed, saying that when China ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—a treaty that laid out the rules for national rights over oceans—the country gave up its historical right to the sea. The tribunal also said China violated international law with the environmental damage it’s been doing to the ocean’s reefs.
Beijing isn’t really having it though, because they didn’t participate in the trail and additionally plan on stepping up their activity in the sea as a show of retaliation. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the ruling was “null and void and has no binding force.” Needless to say, it sounds like things are going to get tense.
While China is clearly displeased, since they’re such a significant foreign power this will hopefully open the door to important negotiations with the Philippines and the United States to settle activity in the water and work to preserve marine life.