There’s a reason it’s called an award rather than a judgment

There’s a reason it’s called an award rather than a judgment.

The answer explains both the enduring strength and the enduring frustration of one of the Philippines’ greatest legal victories. On July 12, 2016, in The Hague, Netherlands, an arbitral tribunal constituted under the dispute-settlement provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) handed down a 501-page award that invalidated most of China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea.

The award was final and binding, yet Beijing rejected it even before the ink had dried—and still does to this day.

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Unlike national courts, arbitral tribunals have no police force to compel states to cooperate. Hence, China’s vessels continue to crowd Philippine waters and harass Filipino fisherfolk with impunity.

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OPINION

OPINION

OPINION

International law has no navy. Its strength comes from assertion, recognition, and repetition. It establishes standards of conduct, defines legitimacy, and shapes diplomatic positions. Over time, it influences how states behave.

That has been the story of the arbitral award over the last decade.

States that support

Before the tribunal’s decision, Beijing claimed the backing of dozens of countries in opposing the arbitration. Today, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, only eight governments publicly reject the award. Twenty-seven states expressly recognize it as legally binding, while another 17 have acknowledged it favorably even if they stop short of demanding China’s compliance.

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Support is no longer confined to Washington, Tokyo, and the Philippines’ other traditional allies, extending to India, South Korea, and European countries. Some Southeast Asian states have cited it without explicitly taking sides. Together, they make it harder and harder for Beijing to portray the award as little more than a Philippine grievance or a Western project.

The tribunal itself was careful to define what it decided and what it did not. It expressly stated that it “does not rule on any question of sovereignty over land territory and does not delimit any boundary between the Parties.”

Instead, it clarified questions of law under Unclos. It found “no legal basis” for China’s claim to historic rights within the waters enclosed by its so-called nine-dash line. It ruled that none of the Spratly Islands generates an exclusive economic zone and held that China violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights while causing severe damage to fragile coral reef ecosystems through large-scale reclamation.

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Ludicrous claim

Those findings reach far beyond the West Philippine Sea and stand as the most authoritative interpretation yet of how the law of the sea applies to maritime claims. They, too, explain why Beijing devotes considerable effort to discrediting the award a decade later.

The ludicrous claim by Chinese scholars that Batanes belongs to China through Taiwan, surfacing just days before this anniversary, should be viewed in that context.

Whether or not China pursues this theory is immaterial. The Philippines should not let it eclipse the far more consequential legal outcome established in The Hague.

After all, dubious historical claims gain currency through repetition, as do sound legal principles.

Which means Philippine diplomacy must not be confined to protesting every act of coercion in the West Philippine Sea, necessary as those protests remain.

Manila’s larger task is to continue persuading governments, particularly within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the broader Indo-Pacific, that the arbitral award is not simply a Philippine victory but an affirmation of rules protecting every coastal state. Smaller nations have as much stake as the Philippines in preventing vague historical assertions from overriding the law of the sea.

Landmark decision

The work remains unfinished. No Southeast Asian government has yet formally declared the award legally binding, unlike countries in the West. That should remain one of the Philippines’ long-term objectives. China may reject the award, but it cannot prevent the rest of the world from accepting it.

History is replete with international decisions that outlasted the objections of powerful states. The case of Nicaragua v. United States, in which the International Court of Justice found that the US had breached international law by supporting the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, was dismissed by Washington, yet has since become a landmark in modern international law.

The South China Sea arbitral award is on a similar trajectory. Its authority will be measured by the willingness of other nations to invoke it as the governing interpretation of the law of the sea.

An award suggests something bestowed. But this was not a gift. The Philippines earned it through years of meticulous legal preparation and convincing advocacy.

In 2013, Manila sought arbitration because it believed that law could accomplish what power alone could not.

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The tribunal spoke in 2016. The world is learning to listen.