Spratly Islands Dispute in the South China Sea: Potential Solutions

• Author: Md. Monjur Hasan - He Jian
• Position: Ph.D. Fellow at the Ocean University of China School of Law. LL.B. (Honors)/LL.M. (Univ. of Rajshahi, Bangladesh). ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1367-6213. This research was supported by China Scholarship Council (CSC) (Grant number 2016GXY055). Much gratitude is extended to the China Scholarship Council for offering such an opportunity to...
• Pages: 145-168

Md. Monjur Hasan

∗

& He Jian

∗∗

The Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute between China, Taiwan,

Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei, concerning territorial sovereignty

  

is raising tensions in Asia, so the settlement of this dispute is of key importance for

       

an international geo-strategic, economic, political and legal matter. After a 1988

armed conflict between Vietnamese and Chinese forces, the claimants have looked

for approaches to solve the conflict peacefully through different informal endeavors,

but due to the complexity of the dispute there are a number of barriers to reaching a

permanent settlement. This study puts forward some potential approaches for resolving

the dispute, considering its complex nature, by evaluating the six parties’ competing

claims and analyzing the legal soundness of their claims.

Keywords

Spratly Island, South China Sea, Territorial Dispute, Maritime Claims

Spratly Islands Dispute

in the South China Sea:

Potential Solutions

∗ Ph.D. Fellow at the Ocean University of China School of Law. LL.B. (Honors)/ LL.M. (Univ. of Rajshahi, Bangladesh).

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1367-6213. This research was supported by China Scholarship Council (CSC) (Grant

number 2016GXY055). Much gratitude is extended to the China Scholarship Council for offering such an opportunity

to conduct this research. The author may be contacted at: monju.law10@gmail.com/Address: School of Law, Ocean

University of China, 238 Songling Road, Laoshan, Qingdao 266100, Shandong, P.R China.

∗∗ Senior Fellow at The Marine Development Studies Institute of the Ocean University of China; Professor, School of Law

at the Ocean University of China. Ph.D. (Xiangtan Univ., China). The author may be contacted at: hj1975xtu@126.

com/Address: School of Law, Ocean University of China, 238 Songling Road, Laoshan, Qingdao 266100, Shandong,

P.R China.

J. EAST ASIA & INT’L L. Vol. 12/No.1 (2019); 145-168

Publication type : Research Article

Section : Student Contribution

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2019.12.1.08

146 Monjur Hasan & He Jian

I. Introduction

The dispute of the Spratly Island features is a longstanding issue among the six

littoral coastal parties (China, Taiwan, Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia and

Brunei) around the South China Sea. Due to its complex nature, the dispute has been

unresolved for a great many years. The Spratly features are a group of islands, islets

and cays, including more than 100 reefs and sometimes classified in submerged

old atolls, in the South China Sea.

1

The archipelago is located off the coasts of the

Philippines, Malaysia, and southern Vietnam. It was named after British whaling

captain Richard Spratly, who sighted Spratly Island in 1843.

2

The islands contain less

than 2 km

2

(490 acres) of naturally occurring land, spreading over an area of more

than 425,000 km

2

(164,000 sq mi). According to the provision of the United Nations

Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), only forty of the Spratly features

are considered islands, while the remaining features of the archipelago are either

submerged under water or are above water only during low tide.

3

The Spratly features are the most important archipelagos in the South China

    

location on strategic shipping routes. The islands have no indigenous inhabitants, but

      

4

These Island features are thus very important to the claimants in their attempts

to establish international maritime boundaries in the South China Sea because

sovereignty over these features will entitle the adjacent countries to an extended

continental shelf. Although some of the islands have civilian settlements, most of the

Spratly features are used for military purposes by China, Malaysia, the Philippines,

Taiwan, and Vietnam. Brunei has only claimed an exclusive economic zone in the

south eastern part of the Spratly features, Louisa Reef, which is uninhabited. No

feature of the Spratly is used for military purpose by Brunei.

China, Taiwan, and Vietnam all claim the whole of the Spratly island group.

The Philippines claims a number of the features that are included under its Kalayaan

1 See South China Sea, between the Philippines, Borneo, Vietnam, and China, WWF, available at https://www.

worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/im0148 (last visited on Mar. 4, 2019).

2 See Malaysia’s Claim in the Spratlys, BORNEO POST (Sabah), Aug. 23, 2015, available at https://www.pressreader.com/

malaysia/the-borneo-post-sabah/20150823/281835757446751 (last visited on Mar. 4, 2019).

3 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Signed on 10 December 1982; entered into force on 16 November

1994).

4 N. Owen & C. Schofield, Disputed South China Sea hydrocarbons in perspective, 36 MARINE POL’Y. 809-22

(2012).