CSSN-Hamburg’s jurisdiction in sea dispute questioned

Hamburg’s jurisdiction in sea dispute questioned

Author : Source : Chinese Social Sciences Today 2016-07-12

The attempt of a Hamburg-based tribunal to assert jurisdiction over an arbitration case regarding South China Sea issues unilaterally initiated by the Philippines “will broadly undermine the potential utility of international adjudication,” said Abraham Sofaer, a former legal adviser at the US State Department, during a seminar held on June 26 in the Hague, the seat of the Dutch government, co-organized by the Grotius Center for International Legal Studies at Leiden University and the Institute for Boundary and Ocean Studies at Wuhan University. China made a clear declaration about potential exceptions when it signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and it refused to accept any binding methods of dispute resolution with respect to sovereignty and delimitation of sea area, said Sienho Yee, chief expert at the Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies at Wuhan University. China’s position on these issues should be respected by international judicial and arbitration institutions, Yee said.

Editor: Yu Hui