UNCLOS
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Vietnam backs India oil exploration in South China Sea
Amid China’s growing assertiveness over the South China Sea, Vietnam Thursday said that India has the right to pursue ‘exploration and exploitation work’ in the area. Vietnam foreign minister Pham Binh Minh, addressing a joint press briefing with his Indian counterpart Salman Khurshid, said both sides had discussed the South and East China Seas and […]
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Energy Cooperation in the South China Sea
Jonas Grätz: Resource estimates differ widely as the contested status of many areas in the South China Sea inhibits exploration. Based on known fields, proven and probable reserves have been estimated by the US Energy Information Administration at 11.2 billion barrels of oil and 5.3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. About half of it […]
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PH: China turning sea into its lake
ASEAN, Ayungin Shoal, Brunei, China, Code of Conduct, Malaysia, Nine Dash Line, Oil, Panatag Shoal, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines, Scarborough Shoal, Second Thomas shoal, South China Sea Dispute, Spratlys, Taiwan, UNCLOS, VietnamMANILA, Philippines—China is turning the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) into “one country’s lake,” Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said on Tuesday, pressing Manila’s effort to roll back Beijing’s expansive claims in the strategic waterway. Speaking before an experts’ roundtable on maritime security in Brussels, Belgium, Del Rosario said China’s assertion of ownership over […]
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The danger of pushing China too far on law of the sea
China has been under withering political and legal attack for allegedly violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although at the recent meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Brunei, Beijing declared its willingness to discuss a code of conduct for the South China Sea, there has been no change […]
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Are Filipinos united against China’s invasion of Ayungin?
At a fund raiser for the Filipino Advocates for Justice in Oakland on June 20, I sat down with the former national chair of Bayan USA to ask him if his group planned to join the July 24 global protest against China’s occupation of the Ayungin Reef. Model of the Philippine Independence Day float of […]
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The South China Sea: A new area in Chinese-Indian rivalry
While the world focuses on rising tension between China and the Philippines and other claimants in the South China Sea, Beijing and Delhi are also engaged in a quiet struggle in the contested waters. By putting up for international bidding the same oil block that India had obtained from Vietnam for exploration, China has thrown […]
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China needs to undo its pseudo-history
Brunei, China, Malaysia, Nine Dash Line, Philippines, South China Sea Dispute, Taiwan, UNCLOS, VietnamThe Chinese are taught from grade school that the entire South China Sea is theirs. Textbooks carry an “ancient map” with nine dashes in a U-shape denoting the outer limits of the sea, skirting the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, some islands of Indonesia, and Vietnam. Thirteenth-century-old, the Chinese map purportedly proves that “we were there first.” […]
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Is bringing sea row to UN useless?
News reporters, sometimes, incompletely report or misinterpret statements by people they cover resulting in confusion or making their subject look like bearers of bad news. As I was reading back issues of the Standard Today, after my return from a trip abroad, a news article on May 24 caught my eye. It was titled “Bringing […]
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ITLOS Tribunal Grows In International Adjudication
President Yanai gave his annual address to the twenty-third Meeting of the 165 States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on 10 June 2013. He informed the delegates that the Tribunal had worked over the last year on four complex cases related to a variety of issues, encompassing maritime […]
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States Parties to Convention on Law of the Sea Will Hold Twenty-third Meeting at Headquarters, 10-14 June
The twenty-third Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will be held at Headquarters from 10 to 14 June. Often referred to as “the constitution for the oceans”, the landmark Convention was adopted on 10 December 1982 and entered into force on 16 November 1994. Its 320 articles and […]