Maritime Features in SCS Arbitration 99
XI JEAIL 1 (2018)
Jinxing Ma
∗
The status of maritime features is one of the core issues in the South China Sea
Arbitration. The essence of this issue is territorial sovereignty and maritime
delimitation disputes between China and the Philippines. Based on the interception
of certain facts and evidence, the Tribunal did not interpret the China
’
s diplomatic
position as it wanted, and it had an intensely subjective interpretation of Article
121(3) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982. Combined
with the Chinese government
’
s positions before and after the publicity surrounding
the Award, this paper, which takes the logical approaches of the Award as the main
line, focuses on chapter 6 of the Award, raising questions about disputes on the
status of maritime features, analyzing the treaty interpretations related to the status
of maritime features, and clarifying the defections.
Keywords
Arbitral Tribunal, South China Sea, Statue, Maritime Features, Treaty
Interpretation, In Dubio Mitius
A Chinese Perspective of
Treaty Interpretation on the
Status of Maritime Features:
In Response to the South
China Sea Arbitration Award
∗ Assistant Researcher and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of International Law, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS). LL.M. (Saarland), LL.B./Ph.D. (Dalian Maritime Univ.). The views expressed in this paper are those
of the author’s and do not represent the official position of any government agencies or other people. The author may be
contacted: majinxing@cass.org.cn /Address: No.15, Sha Tan Bei Jie, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100720, P.R. China.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2018.11.1.05
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