Taking shoal dispute to int’l court will only complicate matters – China

MANILA, Philippines—China has brushed aside the Philippines’ proposal to bring the Scarborough Shoal dispute to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Seas (ITLOS), which is based in Hamburg, Germany.

Instead, Beijing asked Manila to “commit to the consensus we reached earlier on settling the incident through friendly consultations so as not to complicate or aggravate the incident.”

Zhang Hua, spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Manila, urged the Philippines to “fully respect China’s sovereignty and commit to the consensus… so that peace and stability in that area can be restored.”

Zhang told the Inquirer on Thursday that “Huangyan Island (Scarborough Shoal) is China’s inherent territory on which we have sufficient legal basis.”

Early this week, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario dared China to join the Philippines in bringing the conflict to the international tribunal, an independent judicial body established in 1982 by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) as a mediator in disputes arising from the interpretations and applications of UN convention.

Del Rosario said that ITLOS would be the right body to ascertain who between Manila and Beijing has sovereign rights over the shoal, which the Philippines calls Bajo de Masinloc and “where Chinese ships are currently engaging in illegal activities within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone.”