South China Sea: Philippines, Vietnam urged to file joint arbitration on fishing rights

A Philippine expert on international maritime law has urged Manila to invite Hanoi to join a new arbitration case, this time to question China’s unilaterally imposed fishing curbs in Scarborough Shoal.

Former Supreme Court judge Antonio Carpio made the appeal on Friday to foreign envoys, including a representative from the Vietnam embassy, local and foreign businessmen, scholars, senior military and government officials.

They were gathered to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the arbitral award victory by an international tribunal which rejected China’s claim to nearly all of the South China Sea enclosed by its so-called nine-dash line.

The event was organised by the Stratbase ADR (Albert del Rosario) Institute, marking the first time at least 26 nations came together to show support for Manila, which had single-handedly instituted arbitral proceedings against Beijing in 2013 for violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Philippines and China have been locked in a months-long war of words over maritime claims in the South China Sea, punctuated by clashes between both sides. Manila perceives Chinese aggression to include Beijing’s claim to exclusive fishing rights within the Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint that both sides claim falls under their territory.

Carpio at the forum suggested that one of the ways forward was to file a new arbitration case “for China’s refusal to allow Filipino fishermen to fish in the lagoon of Scarborough Shoal”, adding Manila could invite Hanoi on the action.

The arbitral award issued on July 12, 2016, ruled that “the territorial sea of Scarborough Shoal is a traditional common fishing ground of Filipino, Chinese and Vietnamese fishermen”, he said.

“The lagoon of