 So, the next panel is going to deal with legal issues in the South China Sea. We have a great lineup of speakers. Our first speaker regrettably was called overseas on Wednesday. But before he got on the airplane, he made a video, his talking video for 8 or 10 minutes. That's Commander Jonathan Odom, who's an active-duty judge advocate in the U.S. Navy, and he also serves as the Oceans Policy Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. So we're going to now watch Commander Odom. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I would first like to thank CSIS for inviting me to participate in this year's conference. I regret that I'm not able to participate in person, but I also thank them for allowing me to present my video. The views expressed in my conference paper and this presentation are my personal views and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the U.S. government, the U.S. Department of Defense, or any of its components. The title of my conference paper and presentation is How a Rules-Based Approach Could Improve the South China Sea Situation. Much has been said about the importance of a rules-based approach to resolving these international disputes and to reducing the risks that arise from those disputes. Truth be told, there's not a single rule of international law or international norm that will solve all of these problems or mitigate all of these risks. Instead, there's a patchwork of rules and norms that, when taken together, could help to improve the South China Sea situation. This presentation and my conference paper will highlight six ways how a rules-based approach could improve the situation. One way how a rules-based approach can improve the situation is by all nations understanding the importance of properly categorizing claims. Generally, there are two types of claims that issue in the maritime domain. Competing claims and excessive claims. Competing claim arises when two or more nations claim the same water space or this claim same land feature. Excessive claims involve when a coastal state tries to claim more authority over water space or airspace than they're allowed international law. It's important to understand these differences because there's two different bodies of international law apply and sometimes there's different national policy that apply to two. For example, with competing territorial claims, it's the law of sovereignty that applies. But for excessive maritime claims, it's the international law of the sea that applies. And when it comes to national policies, it's also important because there might be two different national policies. For competing territorial claims, for example, the US doesn't take sides on the issue of sovereignty when two or more nations claim land features. But when it comes to excessive maritime claims, the US has a different policy and that is the US freedom of navigation policy in which the US government challenges excessive claims. So in that situation, the US does side. They do take a side and that is it sides with the body of international law reflected in the law of the sea. A second way how a rules-based approach can improve the situation is by promoting the clarity of territorial and maritime claims. On this issue, it's important to understand that the international legal order is generally a consent-based regime. And in the context of international law and the maritime domain, for example, the concept of consent is manifested in the element of acquiescence by other states. For example, if one were to claim a historic bay under international law of the sea, they would have to show as one of the elements that other states had acquiesced in that claim. Similarly, in competing territorial claims, international tribunals look at whether one claimant has acquiesced and another claimant's effective occupation and control over the territory of a period of time. Now, given this principle of consent and the assumption that consent must be informed consent, a problem can arise between nations when one nation does not clarify the nature of its claims and thereby prevents other nations from providing their informed consent. A perfect example of this is the China's nine-dash line that they draw on the South China Sea. Is the nine-dash line a territorial claim? That is, is it a line of allocation for all the land features within the line, or is it a claim that's a maritime claim? That is, a claim to sovereignty or sovereign rights over all the water within the line. A third way how a rules-based approach could improve the South China Sea situation is by promoting the conformity of maritime claims with international law. Coastal states may enact national laws governing their respective maritime zones. However, those national legal authorities must fit within the sovereignty, rights, and jurisdiction afforded to coastal states under the international law of the sea convention. Unfortunately, several of the coastal states bordering the South China Sea have enacted national claims through the years that are not in conformity with the international law of the sea. The good news is that at least two of these South China Sea nations have recently been engaged in the process of getting their legal house in order, that is, the Philippines and Vietnam. The bad news, however, is that China has established and maintains a regime of excessive maritime claims, which is the most comprehensive among the nations bordering the South China Sea. In fact, it could be called a full house, as it has excessive claims in each of its maritime zones. Worse yet, unlike the Philippines and Vietnam, China is exhibiting no interest in reforming any of those claims. And in fact, if the nondash line is a maritime claim, then that would be likely an excessive maritime claim. Given this trend, there's also a concern that China will enact additional excessive maritime claims in the future, such as straight baselines around the Spratly Islands, which it's not allowed to do since it's not an archivalagic state. A fourth way how a rules-based approach can improve the situation is by highlighting that assertive actions have no legal effect of bolstering territorial claims. In situations involving competing territorial claims, the existing legal order does not have a strict ruler test on which claim it should prevail in a particular case. But what is equally important to note is how international law addresses recent actions by a claimant state. Specifically, when evaluating the relative worth of competing claims, the existing international order deliberately does not recognize recent actions taken by a claimant. By recent, I mean actions taken by a claimant after the critical date. The International Court of Justice has described this concept of a critical date as the point in time when the dispute when two or more claimant states has crystallized. This critical date will vary from case to case, but regardless of when is the actual critical date, the ICJ has concluded that actions taken by a claimant after the critical date when the dispute arose are deemed to be legally meaningless. For the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, I will not pretend to possess the subject matter expertise to assess when the critical date was, yet any reasonable observer would acknowledge that these critical dates are clearly some time in the past. It's important to understand that any assertive actions by a claimant state has no effect when it comes to improving its legal claim to the land features and water space. Such unilateral acts risk violating the claimant's legal obligation to resolve its international disputes by peaceful means. A fifth way how a rules-based approach could help to improve the South China Sea situation is through the claimants giving serious consideration to submitting their competing claims to International Court for dispute resolution. We have to first acknowledge the nature of these disputes. First, it's over sovereignty of land territory, something that can't be shared between two or more nations. Secondly, the disputes actually exist whether the claimants want to admit it or not. And third, each claimant appears equally convinced of the legitimacy of its claim, using phrases such as indisputable sovereignty. Now in international law, there are essentially two ways to resolve disputes by peaceful means, that is by negotiation or by international tribunal arbitration. Negotiations remain a legitimate means and the parties should continue to work towards negotiation. But at the same time, I'm starting personally to find it difficult to imagine any claimant of the South China Sea claimants will ever be persuaded by enough information or evidence from one side or persuasive arguments from another side when they all believe they have indisputable sovereignty. The posture of the claimants overuse of third party forums is mixed. The Philippines shows that they support them by their arbitration case. The Vietnam has recently indicated they might be willing to consider it, but China has been strongly against the use of them. And I ask why? Not as a matter of law, but as a matter of policy and not to resolve every dispute, but why not these? These complex multinational disputes, why not resolve them using a tribunal? Clearly, China believes that such international tribunals are legitimate forums. How do I know that? Because I look on the current International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and I see a Chinese judge on each of those courts. Clearly, they are legitimate means for nations to resolve international disputes. A sixth way how a rules-based approach could improve the situation is by reducing the risk of collisions between vessels operating in the South China Sea. This point is not focused on the actual disputes over competing claims, but rather on some of the incidental behavior at sea arising while those disputes remain unresolved. It's important to note that the body of international law that applies to the maritime domain is not limited just to the law of the sea convention. It includes conventions such as the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea. The coal regs are one of the most widely joined international conventions. In fact, every claimant state in the South China Sea and every major user state is a party to that convention. It's important to note that that convention applies to vessels, both flag vessels, as well as government vessels. They both have an obligation to operate safely. And what's also important to note is that the coal regs, when read together with Article 94 of the Law of the Sea convention, puts much of the responsibility for ensuring safety of navigation on the flag state. That includes making sure that crews of your flag vessels are fully trained on those rules and that they know they have to follow them and that if they fail to follow them, they'll be investigated and held to account. When I see in the 2002 declaration of conduct and draft codes of conduct for the South China Sea, when I see that those don't have any reference to the coal regs, I'm amazed. And the reason why is because it's not just a political commitment to maintain safety at navigation, it's a legal obligation for each of the states. There is no silver bullet answer for how to resolve the South China Sea situation. If there was one, these disputes would have been resolved years ago. Yet merely because there is no single solution does not mean that the claimant should take no positive steps to resolve the disputes and to reduce the risks arising from those disputes. This presentation has highlighted six specific ways how a rules-based approach could improve the South China Sea situation. But it will take the political will and deliberate decisions by the government leaders of the individual nations to follow such a rules-based approach. Thank you. So our next speaker is Dr. Bingbing Jia, who has been a professor of international law at Jinhua University since 2004. Earlier he served as a legal officer in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from 1998 to 2004. Dr. Jia, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Dr. Hebert. In fact, what I first want to say is to express my gratitude to the Center for inviting me to share some personal reflections on the situation of South China Sea with distinguished audience like this. Commander Autumn has given a very good, remarkable, exciting opening for the whole panel. And of course, I'm going to follow suit by making points about certain aspects of the whole case. I'm going to deal with only four of the issues on which I have reflected upon over the past year, since I've published the article in the American Journal of International Law last year on the non-dash line. I thought that page has already been turned, but in fact, I think that's probably the very central issue for today's panel. But my point of view is slightly different. Before I go in to the details, I would like to say that what I'm going to say here only represents the personal views of my own does not represent the opinion of any government or organization. The four issues I'm going to discuss today are as follows. The first one is the interconnectedness of the legal issues in the South China Sea. The second one is the geographical scope of the disputes involving in particular the case of Anansha Islands or the Anansha Archipelago. And thirdly, I will say a few words about the sequence of the procedural rules contained in part 15, and clause, the law of the sea convention. And lastly, if time permitting, I would give a very short exposition of the difficulties faced by the up to tribunal established in the South China Sea arbitration. The first one, which is very much packed to what has been stated by Commander Odom, is the multiple facets of the situation of South China Sea. The case is not simple. Different players and stakeholders have different interests. If you want to achieve ultimate and permanent solution to the situation, you have to take care of all the interests expressed by different stakeholders. But for me, in light of the history of the disputes unfolding in this area, I could only see two main disputes which take the center stage of the whole situation. The first one is territorial sovereignty. The second one is a maritime delimitation. The first, you should obviously is concerned with the acquisition of territorial sovereignty in terms of customary international law. And the second one, maritime delimitation, is a matter very much central to the law of the sea convention regime. And Commander Odom already said he prefers to deal with the law of the sea aspect because the outsider probably he sees the point. He sees the interest in the law of the sea aspect of the whole situation. But for somebody right in the middle of the dispute, I think China probably thinks differently. At least I think differently. The whole situation is entangled mess of many disputes. The central to the whole situation above all is the issue of territorial sovereignty. If you talk about critical date concerning the situation in South China Sea, it's a very difficult question for any tribunal or negotiators to determine. If you place it somewhere in the 1970s, it becomes a matter which will be very much in favor of Chinese position because the whole dispute exploded onto the world scene at that time. When Vietnam and the Philippines took physical control of certain insular features in Nanxia archipelago on the pretext that there were terrenilious uninhabited land territory, which was never the case. If you want to approach the whole situation, if you want to achieve a balanced permanent solution to the South China Sea situation, you probably have to take care of all the aspects, and in particular, the aspect of territorial sovereignty. But if you deal with that issue, it's inevitable. You have to discuss the land grabbing back in 1970s. That would be clear breach of all the fundamental principles of UN Charter, known use of force in interstate relations and non-recognition of territorial change enforced by illegal use of force. If you disregard all the fundamental principles of UN Charter, we do not need United Nations anymore, but I think many countries will disagree. And to wrap up the first issue, I would like to say, in fact, the typology of the disputes in the South China Sea has been agreed upon by all the littoral states, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, et cetera. And there have been many documents documenting the agreement or consensus among these states. I'm not going to give you the details because the paper, the presentation I'm doing here will be published online by the center, subject to certain changes. So I just want to say, if you want to solve the situation, you have to deal with all the aspects. That's the first issue. Secondly, if you want to approach the issue of territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea, you have to consider the geographical scope of the situation. It's well known that China has always insisted upon sovereignty over the island groups or archipelagos in the South China Sea, ever since, if you care to remember, 1958. But I could push that even earlier, back in the 1930s. And critically, the contrary behavior from the other littoral states is probably non-existent until 1970. And evidence abounds, if you like, you could have a look at my paper. But if we deal with, for instance, an archipelago as a unity, then it's quite futile and artificial to select certain insular features in the group for jurisdictional purposes, to engage the jurisdiction of the architectural tribunal constituted under annex seven of the Law of the Sea Convention. Just think about it. If you really want to deal with the situation of sovereignty over Nansha archipelago, you have to deal with it as such. It's the result of a nature's work, right? We have archipelago right in the middle of the South China Sea. It's determined by the geography of the situation of the region, sorry. But I will not elaborate on this. I'm sure you're going to come back with some questions on this. The third issue is I'm going to deal with the sequence. I have two minutes left. I'm only dealing with the third issue. I think it's important. It somehow explains, from a personal point of view, the non-appearance of China before the article, sorry, annex seven of the tribunal constituted under the Law of the Sea Convention. Very good reason. Because if you look at the sequence of the procedures provided for in part 15 in section one and in section two, section one provisions properly precede both in terms, in literal terms and in procedural terms, the procedures provided for in section two. And if you look at the text, I rely on the textual interpretation of, for instance, articles 280 and 281. Both articles advocate one thing. If disputes, if parties to a dispute involving the interpretation or application of ANC laws have previously agreed a means of settlement among themselves, that means of settlement will take presidents regardless in all situations because the text of article 281 stays very, very clearly until the procedure provided for in the article runs out, is completed. The procedures provided for in article, in part 15, cannot be triggered. Which basically means if the parties can show by evidence that they have agreed upon a previous means of settlement. Section two procedures, including annex seven actual procedures cannot be started at all. It's a legal question. It's a legal question. And I would go one step further from lawyer's point of view. I think the provision of article 281 is fatal because it allows, it admits of the possibility of self-judging states. It's a matter between the states, parties to the disputes involving interpretation or application of ANC laws convention. There's no place for arbitral tribunals to come in unless the state's parties agree to place the issue, the dispute before the tribunal. But until then, you have no jurisdiction at all. It's self-evident. And the last issue, I don't think I have the time, but probably you know what I'm going to say. It's about the difficulties on the basis of the Philippines' behavior. To measure up to the requirements of article 281, paragraph one, is basically it's impossible to meet the requirements on the present evidence in front of me. Thank you very much. Dr. Jha, thank you very much. Our next speaker is Dr. Vu Hai Dang, who is a member of the Vietnam Lawyers Association and he holds a doctorate in law from Dalhousie University in Canada, Dr. Dang. Can I have the poll point on, please? Somehow mine was missing. No, it started before that. That's okay. So from a glimpse of the screen on my presentation, I guess you think that my speech today would be about the operation of Hai Yang, Xu You, Oiric in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Vietnam. Well, if you think like that, I can ensure you're right away that you are totally right. Of course I'm going to talk about that. Because I think it's a very recent move of China under my international law, under my regional peace, stability and cooperation in the region. But before going into the analysis, the legal analysis of the Oiric operation, I would like to provide you as background some of the existing disputes between Vietnam and China in this area. Actually, there is some poll points missing here, but the first dispute I would like to talk about is the sovereignty dispute between Vietnam and China in the Paracels. Both China and Vietnam claim sovereignty over Paracels and both countries have provided evidence to back up their claims. According to the evidence provided by Vietnam, Vietnam has discovered these islands since at least the 15th century and Vietnam has exercised sovereignty over these islands since at least 17th century. According to the evidence provided by China, Chinese people know about some islands in the South China Sea since a long time ago. But China didn't claim sovereignty over Paracels until 1909 and even later with the spotlights. So from an international law perspective, I think Vietnam had a better case waiting to sovereignty over the Paracels and the spotlights. Another thing, China claimed that there's no dispute over the Paracels between Vietnam and China, but if you read international law, especially the jurisprudence of the international court justice, a dispute between two states is a disagreement, a point of law or fact. So obviously, there's a dispute between Vietnam and China over the sovereignty of the Paracels. And the second big challenge between Vietnam and China in this area is the entitlement of the Paracels islands. China's state, according to China, the Paracels are entitled to have fully exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. However, if you look at the international law and practice with regards to the regime of islands, you can see that those islands are small, located offshore and near the area of the equidistant line, usually have a very reduced effect in my time delimitations. So in this case, I think, except those submerged banks and those low tide elevations in the Paracels, on the island life feature in the Paracels, can really have very reduced effect in a delimitation between Hainan Islands and Vietnam Scots, especially when they are located near the equidistant line between Hainan Islands and Vietnam Scots. And this is also supported by the practice between Vietnam and China in the delimitation of the Gulf of Tonking. Backland Island of Vietnam was given 15 nautical miles waters in the delimitation of the Gulf of Tonking before in 2000. And backland island is bigger than any feature of the Paracels and it has a permanent habitation. So I don't think that the Paracels feature could have more than backland island even much less. I mean around maybe 10 nautical miles according to international jurisprudence. And now I would like to go into the operation of the Hai Yang Studio 981 in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Show of Vietnam. I will not describe this into details because my colleagues this morning have only done that. But look at the location of the auric. You can see quite clearly that it belongs to the place where this auric is operating belongs to the Exclusive Economic Zone of Vietnam and Continental Show of Vietnam. It does not belong. If proper delimitation between Vietnam and China would be proceeded, it will not belong to the waters of Hainan Island and it will not belong to the waters of the Paracels Spellago either. So I think that by operating the auric as the Hai Yang Studio auric, China has broken several rules of international law. First, it has violated sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the coastal state in Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf. It has violated freedom with navigation of states in the Exclusive Economic Zone. It has violated rules relating to safety of navigations and it violated rules relating to prohibition to use force or threatened to use force in international relations. Finally, I would like to provide some perspective for solution to resolve this peace between Vietnam and China in this area. First, I think that both countries should refrain from doing in unilaterally in unlimited areas beyond a distance line between Hainan Islands and the coast of Vietnam. With regards to Hai Yang Studio, I think that China doesn't have to move it away because it's a moveable auric. So normally it is considered like a ship. So a ship can move around, it doesn't violate any rule of international law. But China have to stop doing, stop positioning it because by positioning the auric, the auric could be considered as a artificial installation. And thirdly, China have to stop preventing ships from other nations to come in and out of this area because it's freedom of navigation. Second, I think China should proceed, China and Vietnam should proceed to the delimitation of the area of the Gulf of Tonking and enclaving the Paracel Islands for joint development. Actually, currently China and Vietnam is discussing the delimitation and joint development in this area. By enclaving the Paracels feature, I mean that you draw circles around the Paracels, maybe up to Charnautical Mines, and then you leave them beside and you push it to the delimitation. And with the islands, you can conduct joint development. And third, I think the two countries should initiate talks relating to sovereignty over the Paracels. I know that so far China has refused to talk about these issues. But recently, I think there's a change in China's behavior because China has come out to the United Nations to talk about the sovereignty issues in the Paracels. So if China could talk about it at the United Nations, I don't see why China could not talk about it in Vietnam. Maybe at the beginning, China and Vietnam could start those talks at the more informal level and then move up to more political talks. And finally, if on those negotiations couldn't work, I think that the two countries should consider using these international courts and tribunals to solve their disputes. I am aware that China has opened out some issues of the enclosed tribunal. Also, they haven't accepted the jurisdiction of the international court justice, but I think there are some issues could enter into a jurisdiction of an international arbitration under the next seven. For example, in the time of the islands, for example, safety of navigations. So I think China and Vietnam could use international settlement dispute mechanism for those issues. So this was my presentation. Thank you for your attention. And if you have any questions or comments, we are more than welcome. Thank you. Great, thank you, Dr. Dao. Our next speaker is Henry Ben-Serto. I'd just like to congratulate Henry. He is a newly minted one month old consul general of the Philippines in San Francisco. So congratulations, Henry. But he's also the assistant secretary of what is called the West Philippine Sea Center of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Philippines. Henry, please. Thank you for that very kind introduction. First, thank you to CSIS. I think it's very good that we have a forum. If you cannot have the dialogues directly between the parties, then we look for another forum where we're able to speak candidly and frankly, because I think before you can solve a problem, you have to recognize the existence of a problem. You can never solve a problem if you don't recognize that that problem exists. And for that, I'm very grateful for CSIS. I'd like to preface the presentation also by saying that with the use of denial or caveat, pretty much similar to Chatham House rules. If I say the right things, then please give the credit to the total legal team of the Philippines that includes Paul Reichler, who will be here tomorrow. If I say the wrong things, then it's mine and mine alone. I will take responsibility for that. The third point I'd like to say is that my presentation, in terms of the Philippine legal approach, is not the sum total of our legal approach. What you see right now is just the first phase or one half of the total legal approach. I'm not at liberty to divulge the second half, but I think it's best that we focus on the first half. It's also not the sum total of a comprehensive Philippine strategy. Obviously, we've heard many speakers this morning talking of the approach as multidimensional. And it is from that perspective that we approach the issue. The legal approach is just but one component, but a very important legal infrastructure in the resolution of the disputes. My fourth point there here is that I think and I'm very grateful for Dr. Bing for mentioning that it's a legal entanglement. I think for a long time we've been into this legal gridlock and precisely how do we disentangle ourselves from that gridlock that gives us a clue on how to approach the issue. And my final point to preface, I'm sorry, the keynote speaker mentioned this morning about the roadmap and therefore hopefully what I will present here, and it's another term for roadmap, but we call it path to peace. And so this is what we term our legal approach as that point of the building blocks towards putting the house in the South China Sea in peaceful stable environment. Therefore, let me proceed with the presentation. I will try to go with this outline. I will give an overview of the legal approach and then from there I'll discuss the dispute which Dr. Bing mentioned about the two aspects and I will go into that. Let me state by saying at the very outset and I'd like to emphasize this, at the very outset the current Philippine legal approach is not about the resolution of the territorial dispute and I will explain this. The focus of our legal approach now is on the resolution of the maritime disputes. This is the whole idea. For a long time we've been discussing this legal entitlement and we've been going around circles for the last 30 years and so you ask yourself how do you disentangle yourself from this? So you have to disaggregate the two disputes and this is the territorial dispute and the maritime dispute. The two are interrelated but they are distinct and separate from each other. They are governed by separate legal regimes. The maritime dispute, the main law that is applied is essentially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Whereas with respect to territorial dispute, this is governed by general international law including costumary international law. Territorial dispute has something to do with the question of who owns the island. That's the basic question. Maritime dispute has something to do with the questions of what is the character of the future? Is it an island, Iraq, or a low tide elevation? And therefore answering that question you're able to answer the second question of the maritime entitlements appropriate for such feature. The other distinction between maritime and territorial disputes is that it is difficult to answer the territorial dispute whereas maritime dispute, the Convention on the Law of the Sea has provided us certain mechanisms to approach it in a much, much progressive way. And therefore the final question here is, is it possible for us to kind of resolve the maritime disputes in the meantime that we're able to shelve the territorial dispute? I think Chairman Mao did say that, shelving territorial dispute and engaging in cooperation. The only problem with that statement is that they were not able to operationalize it in a doable way and therefore we provided an operationalization of that concept. Let me therefore go over, oh may last point before shifting to that. The moment we get ourselves entangled on these two questions and we're not able to disaggregate the two, we will just be in that cycle of never ending discussion of who's right, your opinion or my opinion. There has to be a better way of approaching this. So let me therefore explain the territorial dispute in the context of the geography of the South China Sea. By explaining exactly what the territorial dispute is in the South China Sea, what you see here is the semi-inclusive South China Sea. The first category of territorial dispute has something to do with the features in the parasols and the spratis, basically the question of who owns these features. That's the territorial dispute, not the entire South China Sea. But then it is territorial disputed because it's claimed by several countries and they are occupied by different countries. Let me just go over the various occupants. Now, since a land territory or a land feature extends to the 12 nautical miles territorial sea and that's why we call it territorial sea because it's really an extension of the land territory, therefore by definition, we can rightly say that the territorial dispute extends not just from the land but to the extent of the 12 nautical miles territorial sea. That's the territorial dispute. Let me go over the various issues on the maritime dispute. The first maritime dispute generated is because the distance between some of the countries are less than 200, obviously you will have an overlap to the north of the Philippines, for example, and to the south. This dispute is the easiest way in the South China Sea because the convention provides the various principles by which they could be delimited. In fact, in the case of the Philippines and Indonesia, we have been able to delimit our exclusive economic zone. That delimitation could actually be replicated also in the north. However, the second complication of the maritime dispute is that they've been called many ways, nine dotted line, nine dashed line, and precisely this is the next maritime dispute that claim for jurisdiction or sometimes indisputable sovereignty, depending on who articulates it from our friend from the north, that they have this jurisdiction or indisputable sovereignty over this entire sea that is enclosed in that nine dashed line. Now they're calling it on the basis of historic claim. I will go into that later on. The other aspect of the maritime dispute is essentially the projection of 200 from these features, the Spratlys, the Scarborough, and even the Paracels. Without regard as to whether they are islands, low tide elevations, or racks, because later on I will explain that on the basis of the Article 121 of UNCLOS, they are not given the same value. Islands which generate 200, racks will not generate 200. They are only capable of 12 nautical miles and it is not a matter of discretion. Low tide elevations, on the other hand, do not generate any maritime regime. So therefore what is the thrust of the Philippine legal approach now? Precisely analyzing the problem, the thrust of the Philippine legal approach is essentially to challenge and clarify the concept of nine dashed line. The second part of our legal approach is essentially to clarify also the character of the features in the Spratlys and Scarborough. So by doing so, we're able to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. We're also able to affirm the entitlements. At this point I'd like to make a distinction between a claimant and entitlement. And entitlement generates rights and obligations. Claim unless proven do not generate anything. And finally, it will affirm also the high seas. I should notice it's not really just the literal states around because there is a portion that is not covered by the exclusive economic zones of the literal countries. And therefore how do we go about and achieve these objectives? The challenges are substantive issues and issues on jurisdiction. Before, let me preface the presentation of the substantive. It's better to have a grasp first of what China's claim is all about. They have not given a formal explanation of what this claim is, but maybe we can pick up from what the academicians of China are saying. And precisely here is what you see the justification of Judge Gao and I think Professor Bing did co-author this. And essentially they have three points explaining the nine dash nine. First as you can see it's about indisputable sovereignty on the features. Second is that they have jurisdiction over the relevant waters with respect to navigation and fisheries by way of historic claim. And third is that it's a maritime limitation. At this point I'd like to note, I'd like to note and this is important, sorry. There was, I don't know if this is working, let me. And this is important. I'd like to note that in an earlier publication of Judge Gao, he never talked about historic title. This was an article in 1994. So there was even a change in terms of the articulation of Judge Gao. He never mentioned the historic title in his previous discussion paper and he just merely said that it is a line of allocation. But by 1990, but by, sorry. However, in their recent article he now expanded the concept of the nine dash line. And this, by the way, this academic scholar interpretation has been carried in the note verbal of China. Now let me clarify that what we are challenging in terms of the article of Judge Gao is not the sovereignty of the features that will take centuries to settle. What we are trying to address is the second point of Judge Gao and it has something to do whether or not they have historic claim or title or rights over that body of water that is not related to the land features. Remember, UNTOS is about land dominating the sea. Before explaining this point, I'd like to take note that what has always been referred to and that we would like to challenge this, the so-called historic claim is not really that historic. It was just officially articulated in 1998 despite the claim to the contrary. As I think the Vietnamese speaker this morning and now made mention that it was only with legislation on continental shelf that this was articulated, this historic claim. But previous to that, even if you look at the maps that they have published in 1947, they don't say anything about the claim. It's pretty silent. And if you look at the maps, and this requires another forum, all their maps look only at the Hainan as the southernmost extent and later on Paracels. I will go fast because I've not been, let me just go over quickly. And when they ratified, they did not mention also about the historic claim. It was only after they ratified UNTOS that they made mention of the historic rights. Now, that I'm given times up, let me just say that this claim, and maybe in the open forum, we can further amplify. This claim contradicts the very principle of UNTOS. It is by consent that you ratify and enter into disagreement. And UNTOS is supposed to trump all other claims previous to this. And that was the, and UNTOS provided in a strict way what are the entitlements that every state has. Historic waters are only addressed or preserved in those areas in the convention where they are specifically and expressly addressed. And there are specific provisions where they are addressed. Outside of this, the general entitlements provided under the convention remains. The other thing, the last point I'd like to say on this point is that when you actually ratified UNTOS, you make yourselves bound by that convention. And the convention provides that there is no reservation and you're supposed to harmonize your domestic law with international law. And so you are supposed to give up whatever claims you have in the past with the succeeding law, subsequent law. I want to emphasize also that during the negotiation of UNTOS, actually, China never preserved the concept of nine dash line. And I'd like to show you a document that they have presented. Unlike the Philippines, and you will see this on all the documents, we tried to preserve the historic concept of Treaty of Paris, but it was disapproved. In the case of China, the People's Republic of China, when they participated, they never tried or attempted to preserve the nine dash line, actually. So you will never see this in the documents pertaining to UNTOS. I'll preserve this. Let me just go fast. The second point of our, I know I've, in the features, I did mention earlier about Article 121. I just showed you what are the features occupied by China, the eight features. None of these are islands. These are actually low tide elevations or racks. And therefore, you cannot project 200. So what we're trying to prove here is therefore that of these features that they are occupied, four are actually low tide elevations and therefore are not entitled to an exclusive economic zone by definition of Article 121. The other four features, which are racks, actually are only entitled to the extent of dog nautical miles. And this is what we're trying to say. Nonetheless, despite this, and this was shown anyway, but let me just go over quick. There's an attempt to kind of change the status quo of these features, despite the fact that it is now pending before a tribunal, and the very issue that we have put forth in the tribunal is exactly the character of the features. Yet, what you see, this used to be what it is in terms of Johnson Rift. This is now how it looks like by 2014, by March of this year. But I just want to point out that they will not, despite efforts to the contrary, they will not project any maritime entitlements in terms of those low tide elevations. I think I've gone over my time. I'm supposed to discuss also some aspects of the jurisdictional issues. I just want to point out, if I'm allowed, the three reservations of China with respect to maritime delimitation. This is not about maritime delimitation. This is about maritime entitlement. The two are related, but they are distinct from each other. It's like, if I say that who is the owner of this, I'm not asking who is the owner of this feature. I'm simply asking the court to tell me whether this is a feature, a glass, or a cup. The determination of the character of this object here will determine also its entitlement. Finally, with respect to the exchange, the DOC does not preclude the parties from going to arbitration. I just also would like to point out that in our discussions with China, we've had more than 120 exchanges or discussions. Let me therefore conclude. I do apologize for this by quoting my precedent and I'm not going to repeat it. I'll just show it here. And finally, what my Secretary of Foreign Affairs mentioned about the rule of law because it is from this perspective and there has been a lot of discussions in terms of rules-based or rule of law. And this is precisely our approach. In terms of resolving the disputes in the South China Sea, that it has to be rules-based and peaceful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Henry. We have one other person on the podium. Because Commander Odom is not able to be here physically, we've invited Jerome Cowan, who is a senior expert on East Asia law, who long time directed the East Asia Legal Studies Institute at Harvard Law School to join us for the Q and A so we'd have somebody who could represent maybe the legal aspects from the point of view of the United States. So Jerome, welcome. Before we maybe open the floor, I'd like to see if any of the participants want to respond to the comments of some of the other panelists. Thank you very much, Dr. Hebert, for giving me the chance to do a rejoinder, basically. I was thinking, because the original schedule, original order of speech, I was probably at the last. But now I was thrust upon right at the front of everybody. But I did my work. But I would like to add a few points after the two gentlemen's statements just now. Firstly, as I said, the situation of South China Sea is mainly concerned with territorial sovereignty over the islands. Why that's important? As evidenced clearly by the speeches given by the two gentlemen on the panel. That's why over the years, over the past three, four decades these three countries have reached agreement or consensus to deal with the situation by way of dialogue, consultations, negotiations. And of course, the strongest piece of evidence is not DOC, Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea. Which I've said quite a lot already in my book. They edited with my friend Stefan Taimon on the South China Sea arbitration. If you have time, you may want to flip through. But the point is that because the importance, the uttermost importance of the issue of territorial sovereignty in this region, the three countries concerned have agreed time and again to deal with it by way of dialogue, consultation, negotiation, and evidence about a plenty. I mean, also in my paper, I'm not going to detail here, but you can have a look at it, that sets the tone. Once you have defined the typology of disputes and the way to deal with it, there's only one way. There's only one established norm in the whole situation to move it forward. Anything else like resort to judicial means is not prohibited, by the way. But the judicial means is never the only way to deal with a complicated situation such as the South China Sea. Law is never the best. Law is to be interpreted and applied in a context, a factual context. You can never apply law as academic exercise as shown clearly by Dr. Ben Sutter's reference to the question of a maritime entitlement, maritime entitlement of a waltz of some insular features. And what are they? Are they islands or the rocks? I'm sure the Arbitral Tribunal will scratch its head to find an answer. How do you define in legal terms an island can be inhabited capable of habitation? A rock cannot be. It's not a legal question. The uncloth is drafted in such a way. It has to reach a compromise within a very tight time schedule. And you have to reach a certain result. And the result is sadly something which is very ambiguous. In terms of article 121's wording, you can have a look at it. Can you tell me which island, which rock cannot be habited by humans? And in which way? It's not a legal question. It's probably sociological. So that shows that legal means, even within the context or the convention, is not the best way. It's not the only way. Let's say this, I'm not degrading the judicial means. I have full confidence and a face in judicial settlement of the dispute. But only in this particular concrete case, dialogue consultation negotiations has been agreed upon by all three countries. If you want the evidence, there's plenty. And then I come back to this hypothetical question of maritime entitlement. If you do not have a coastline, how can you say you have economic zone? If you are inland country, you have a new coastline. What's the point to discuss the maritime entitlement of an island in a sea thousands of miles from your country? Do you think it's worth it? Do you think we should expense all the very valuable resources of a human mind and let's say money? On questions like this, what's the point of it? And supposing we can deal with it, right? It's a hypothetical and economic exercise. We deal with six features raised by the Philippines in the notification and claims. What about the other 200 odds in sort of features of a similar status and nature? Are you going to put up more cases in future? Are you going to envisage a incessant and frivolous lawsuits like this? What's the point of it? If the six features, the islands, what about the other 200? What's the point? That's why I say the whole situation requires a wholesale comprehensive approach. If you deal with Nansha Islands, you deal with as unity just like the Philippines have dealt its own archipelagic islands as a unity. Remember, back in fifties, when the ILC International Law Commission discussed the regime of territorial waters and straight baselines, what did Philippines say? Philippines said, okay, we're going to apply that to our archipelago. And instantly met with strong protest from mountain powers, the U.S. and the U.K. There was no way they're going to do that, but that does not stop the Philippines from claiming it on the basis of historic title. And I just, on this point, I'll revert to one of the points raised by Dr. Ben-Zirta. Historic title is quite different from historical rights. Historical rights of navigation and fishing, and et cetera, et cetera. Completely different from historic title in terms of international law. When we talk about historic title, we talk about title to territory. So do not mix up. And there are other things here. I'm glad Dr. Ben-Zirta recognized the paramount importance of the principle of land dominance C because it came from the very judgment of an international court of justice in the 1969 North Sea continental shelf cases. And it has been consistently upheld by the court ever since to this day. That again answers the question of American entitlement. If you do not have a coast, what's the point of having entitlement? Entitlement has been defined clearly in the text of Enclos, the treaty, right? You have a 12 nautical mile territory, so you have a 200 nautical mile, it can ease it. And you have a 200 nautical mile or 350 nautical mile continental shelf, et cetera, et cetera. What's the point to answer that question? Unless you have a coast, you have a coastline. You have terra firma on which you can stand. If you do not even have that, what's the point to answer maritime entitlement? And as to the sovereignty over the parasols, I think it's a question of evidence, a trust in the evidentiary weight of the Chinese evidence, which can be put up. I mean, we have some in the article referred to by Dr. Ben-Serto in the AJA article, but I'm not going to recount all that. But the thing is, if it is that we're discussing Enclos here, if it is a matter of territorial sovereignty, if it is a territorial sovereignty of the Paracel Islands, there's not a lot of the sea issue. So what's the point to discuss it here? If you want to talk about the convention, let's focus on the convention. If you want to talk about historic title, let's deal with that. Historic title is not regulated in the law of the sea convention, isn't it? It's fairly clear, it's not my personal opinion. It's a matter of fact. The convention is completely silent on the region of the historic waters, historic title, and territorial sovereignty. That's why I think there is another reason why China does not have to appear before the cause, before the arbitrage tribunal. It is this. There's no substantive law. As a result, there is a lack of jurisdiction. So manifest and the plane to be argued about. Right? You law of the sea convention cannot cover everything in international law, isn't it? You cannot deal with, for instance, the use of force in Iraq or Syria, right? You cannot expect too much from very specialized conventions such as this. That says one thing. Law of the sea convention is a one treaty. It parallels customer international law in many areas. That's why in the preamble of the convention, it stays very clearly. For all the matters unregulated in this convention, customer international law will help, will aid, will regulate. If it is not so, if it is not so, how can you explain? There are so many countries standing outside the law of the sea convention. Sorry, I don't need too many minutes. I leave the floor for questions. Thank you. Jerry, you want? Well, we've heard a fascinating series of presentations and if you're not confused, I don't understand why not. The speakers have been confronted with an impossible task and they have fulfilled it. I want to now try to start the road back. Let's deal with fundamentals and these are very, very fundamental questions. We're confronted with a rising China. We have been assured that rise is peaceful. This is the first test now to see, is it really going to be peaceful? A leading Chinese expert who's responsible for oceanography questions in Guangzhou published an essay on June 16th where he said it's time for a reinterpretation of China's peaceful rise. It doesn't have to be 100% peaceful, he said. It can have 10% coercion, for example, and the rest can be peaceful. Now, if this is the kind of thinking that's underlying the new leadership in China, our discussion here isn't going to come too much. There are three issues involved essentially as I think the speakers would agree. One is the question of territorial sovereignty. Who owns the islands? The second question concerns law of the sea questions, unclosed questions, which you could say are the consequences of who owns the islands. And the third, I hope we'll do next year, we can't get to this year, which is in a country's exclusive economic zone, do other countries have a right for foreign military activities, reconnaissance particularly? That we're putting aside. Let's put aside the territorial questions that Dr. Jha has just mentioned, and let's just focus on the most immediate question before the House. And that question is when there's a dispute about the rules of international law and countries that are involved in the dispute have committed themselves by treaty as they have under unclose. To submit disputes to the unclose arbitration adjudication system. Can one country say, I am so right about my position that the unclose tribunal has no jurisdiction that I don't have to submit my argument to that tribunal at all? Philippines says we have a claim against China it should be decided under unclose. China says the unclose system has no jurisdiction and we're so right, we don't have to follow the rules we've agreed to by submitting our arguments on jurisdiction to the unclose arbitration tribunal because we're right. And since we're right, we can go our own way and we don't have to answer them, but we can publish a book that will give our answers even though we're not going to submit to the tribunal itself. And it's a brilliant book if you're looking for a defense and maybe those arguments will prevail. Maybe the tribunal will say at least in some respects China's right we have no jurisdiction but China doesn't wanna take a chance by doing what it's obligated to do which is are they going to listen to the tribunal's decision if the tribunal decides China is wrong? All these other arguments that you've heard presented on the merits will never come to consideration if the tribunal has no jurisdiction. So this is the key. And if we solve no other problem today I think we should clarify. Can a country arising great power like China decide on its own? We're so right we don't have to go to the tribunal of the world community that we previously agreed to. That's what it's all about. It's might against right. And we can listen to how beautiful negotiation is and consultation as Dr. Jia has indicated till the cows come home but he admits the way the Chinese government does not. That there is a right to go to arbitration or adjudication if everything else fails but it's not desirable. So how long do the other contestants have to wait? 10 years, 20 years with this endless negotiation? What China is trying to do now is trying to say to the rest of the world when we have a dispute you have no right to go to arbitration. You have no right to go to adjudication. They won't even accept mediation by a third country. They want exclusive right to discuss these things through negotiation which happens to give them overwhelming power over the party they're conducting friendly consultation with. And they're trying to make that the exclusive channel for handling these cases. Sometimes it works. Vietnam and China admirably over 10 years ago agreed to settle their border dispute. They admirably have agreed to settle the Gulf of Tonkin water allocation. Those are good examples. And when I have said to Vietnamese legal experts why don't you follow up what China says? They say bilateral negotiation is desirable. You can negotiate with them over the para-cells. They say that it won't work there because China on the para-cells is saying just what Japan is saying on the Senkaku Diaoyu. We occupy those islands so there's no dispute. Since there's no dispute there's nothing to talk about. Go away, don't bother us. So it's rather interesting. China confronts in the Diaoyu Senkaku problem the same problem Vietnam confronts vis-a-vis the para-cells. So let's just talk about this arbitration. I'm profoundly saddened that China has taken the position it has. I've spent my whole life professionally trying to present China's positions on domestic law and international law to the world. In the 60s some American diplomats semi-jokingly accused me of being the lawyer for the Chinese Communist Party in this country. So to me this is a big disappointment. China now has brilliant international lawyers and Professor Jia is a good example of how good their international law scholars are. They have terrific experience and what China has demonstrated repeatedly to the world until now is that they are fully capable of imaginative, flexible, innovative solutions to problems that were previously deemed to be unsolvable. Just think back. Could China and the United States normalize diplomatic relations when the US insists on arms to Taiwan? Can Hong Kong be returned to the motherland on peaceful terms guaranteeing the security of the people of Hong Kong? Can China enter the WTO? Despite humiliating concessions insisted upon by the other countries of the world. Can China, federal central government of China deal with the mere province Taiwan on an equal footing? Turns out they can. They've made 21 agreements on an equal footing by showing terrific imaginative qualities and flexibility. Deng Xiaoping and Zhang Zemin were the leaders of China then. They did some great things but we now have a different leadership in China that has an entirely different attitude toward settling disputes for reasons that we've been discussing. This is the challenge that now confronts us and I think all we can do is hope that the world community can ask the Chinese leadership to reconsider its current position. And lo and behold, I don't know whether CSIS arranged this or not, but yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a very important story about how this arbitration tribunal of the United Nations, the same one that the Philippines has brought its claim to, they decided a dispute over the Bay of Bengal between India and Bangladesh. Bangladesh won, they got 80% of the water being contested and lo and behold, Bangladesh said, of course, this was a victory for both countries. Now we can develop offshore resources in the waters bordered by India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Well, the winner of course would say something good, but the loser was India, a huge power, almost as populous as China. India's foreign ministry said, the ruling would further enhance mutual understanding and goodwill between the neighbors by bringing to closure a long pending issue. This is very important. This is a good example of what the Philippines is asking for, what Vietnam would like, what other contestants would increasingly like, it's what Japan should be asking for in the East China Sea. And it's not the first time that Bangladesh has used this technique. Two years ago, they won a similar case against Myanmar. So I hope that the Chinese government will consider this. Thank you. By the way, I'm not representing the US government and I'm not a law of the sea expert. So I know that we're gonna have other points from our panelists, but what I suggest we do, we open it to the floor and I give everybody at the end about 90 seconds to make final points because we're running low on time. So if there's questions from the floor, please let me know. Back there. Thank you, a reporter from The Voice of America. So my question is, the Philippines has taken China to the UN court and China made it clear that China is not going to appear. So my question is, what the UN court can do and if the UN court decided to make a verdict in favor of the Philippines and China decided not to abide by that, so what the international community can do. Thank you. Thank you for the questions. I think you have two questions. Let me answer the first one in terms of, I think it has something to do with, despite China's non-participation, will the arbitration proceed? Yes, this is the built-in mechanism under part 15, essentially, that there is compulsory jurisdiction provided the issues are not among the reservations made by China. And that's why our contention is that the issue that we have put forward before the arbitration are issues outside of the reservations made by China and it's also not a territorial question. Therefore, that being the case, the residual power of the tribunal under part 15 will operate and China was given until December 15. Now, the question is, will they determine first the question of jurisdiction before determining the merits? In so far as the rules of the tribunal is concerned, they're open to two possibilities. They have given themselves the flexibility in terms of if the two issues are so interrelated, such that when you decide on the issue of jurisdiction, which is also a question of merits, then the tribunal has that discretion and flexibility to make one decision that actually operates to address both issues. The thing is, the fact that there was a December 15 deadline and the tribunal continues to operate, that's pretty encouraging in terms of the rule of law. Second, your question is, what if they don't, they don't honor the decision? That's very unfortunate. I think the case just cited by Professor Cohen demonstrates what rule of law is in terms of big power and small power. And this is something to do with the point earlier made by being, Dr. Bing, in terms of law. I think we should not take law very lightly. It is the tie that binds all of us in a society and a community of nations. You take out law, everything becomes arbitrary, then what is might will always be right. And that is not the society that we would like ourselves to be. That will only exacerbate the situation. It will cause case and disorder. And only those that are powerful will, at the end of the day, prevail. That is not the ideal society would like. Going directly to the question of whether they will participate, I think it's going to be wrong and bad for China not to abide by the rulings of the arbitration. I also would like to point out that if you look whether or not they will follow or whether they will follow, these are speculative. Nobody can really answer it right now despite articulations of China to the country. However, we can make an educated guess by looking in terms of the past. There have been numerous cases where powerful countries are involved. At the end of the day, despite articulations to the contrary, these countries abided by the decision of the tribunal, 99.5%. The latest of which is the Arctic case between Russia and Netherlands. Despite articulations by Netherlands, by Russia, that they will not accept the jurisdiction and they will not honor it. They have released the vessel after the decision was made by the tribunal. So at the end of the day, I think it will be good for China to follow the footsteps of India as a powerful country to consider the rule of law because it can also be used by them later on. It law is supposed to protect both the weak and the strong by using an objective standard that is not subject to the arbitrary interpretation of anybody. Thank you. Your other questions? Ernie? Ernie Bauer from CSIS, leaving the enclosed case for a moment. Does, would all the panelists agree that a binding code of conduct for the dispute resolution in the South China Sea is important, is a goal that everyone would agree? And from a legal perspective, what characteristics should that code of conduct have? Thank you. May I take the first crack, and I apologize for taking this. I think being the head of the... We have several that want to answer, so let's keep our answers short. I think I can speak with authority on this respect because I am the head of delegation with respect to the negotiation of the code of conduct. We would actually want the code of conduct to be something that will provide dispute settlement. Unfortunately, that's not the case and we go by consensus. This is not what China wanted. So we lowered our expectation. And so it's not about resolution of disputes. It's about management of tension, management of dispute so they don't escalate. Unfortunately, it's being long delayed and that's why our point is you, what value is the green grass when the horse is already dead? We cannot have the code of conduct when conflict is already there. If it is going to be a management of tension, you have to put code of conduct in place when there is urgency. And this is our point. That's why we are asking for an early conclusion of the code of conduct. Unfortunately, it's taking a slow time and maybe there's another issue to elaborate why but I don't want to violate my 10 seconds rule. Thank you. My turn. Could I just cut in? One point is that it depends on the content of the legal and binding code of conduct. Secondly, given the history of the declaration on the conduct of the parties in the South China Sea, which has been backed up by official documents issued jointly between the presidents of China and the Philippines, I'm not very optimistic about the legally binding code of conducts the future. Thank you. Please. The woman here with the hat. I have a chance to add. I'm adjourned. Thank you so much. Just one second, please. Can we just let Jerry Collins say something and then you have the question? Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't see your hand, sorry. The key question with the code of conduct is going to be how should disputes be resolved? China has been trying to impose an interpretation on the 2002 Declaration of Conduct that would make it illegitimate to go to arbitration or go to adjudication. They will certainly try to insist that a code of conduct, which everyone recognizes as binding, not permit that to happen. This is what's really at stake. What are the methods to be allowed to parties that have disputes? It's always preferable to consult and negotiate. But that's not always possible and sometimes you need other means in order to promote a final negotiation. For decades, centuries, countries have resorted to international decision-making by impartial experts after a fair procedure. China now is trying to say this shouldn't be done anymore. So this is going to be the critical part. They want to rely on other factors than impartial, fair adjudication of the merits. So I, and you also have to say, China thinks Vietnam has violated the DOC, the Declaration of Conduct. They think the Philippines has violated by going to arbitration, but other countries think China has violated the Declaration by changing unilaterally the status quo in a variety of instances. So nobody has confidence that China would live up to a binding code of conduct, even if one could be achieved and it's a very far off prospect. In the meantime, life goes on. We've heard so many different phrases to characterize what's taking place, creeping expansionism. We hear, this morning we heard, I made some notes on other forms of unilateral extension of power, et cetera. This is what's happening while we're talking about a binding code of conduct and whether countries should be allowed to go to impartial decision-making. Dr. Da. I would support Dr. Ben Suto in saying that, you know, an eventual code of conduct will not be used to solve the disputes, but to manage it. So we'd have to regulate behaviors of states at sea so that we wouldn't see those activities that we see, for example, ramming, sinking other's people vessels. But, you know, already those behaviors are already regulated by international law, either treaty laws or customary law, and they are not respected. So how can you expect in a code of conduct they can be respected? Then I would argue that, you know, we need a compliance mechanism, a strong compliance mechanism, or implementation mechanism in the code of conduct so that countries to respect this code of conduct in the future. That is my point. Okay, ma'am. Over to you. Thank you so much. Is this working? Speak into it. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm a freelance journalist. My name is Rita Geron Adkins. Following the theme that Mr. Cohen had so explicitly expressed. And also along the lines of the remarks of Congressman Rogers and the theme, if I may sort of pursue that and request or ask the panel, especially Mr. Cohen, to speculate considering that you had mentioned the case of Bangladesh suit and which was granted by the tribunal against India's interest. Following that suit, considering that the Philippines has also a claim, you know, has brought it to the international court, could you, could anyone speculate as to should the tribunal, the international court, rules in favor of the Philippines? What would be the effect of it on the United States? Considering that the United States policy has been more or less a hands-off, you know, so far as confrontational issues in that regarding China's is concerned. What would be the effect on US policy? Thank you. Sherry, do you have an answer? Do you want to answer? I had trouble hearing the question. In a nutshell, if the arbitration court decide rules. The impact would first of all be would China accept the decision? China is not required to go to the arbitration although it plainly should and other parties have done so in similar circumstances but China is required to accept the result of the arbitration. Maybe the arbitrators will say we have no jurisdiction. Maybe we have none on certain points but then if they go on and they say the presentations we've heard from Vietnam and Philippines, that kind of thing is correct. China will have to decide. Does it thumb its nose and say we're right, they're wrong, they have no jurisdiction even though they ruled that they did? Then China will have to incur the obliquely of the world community and the US will have to decide what do we say about it? We can condemn China for thumbing its nose at the world, China will be hurt definitely but we have to note in Washington DC that the US is not in a great position to do this. We haven't ratified, unclose and joined it so that inhibits us in many ways. Also, when we didn't like a decision of the International Court of Justice under Ronald Reagan, we had a very bad American reaction to it so our record is not spotless. That doesn't make China's future rejection of an arbitration decision correct. We live now in a more dangerous world, it's 30 years later and the US has to do better so I would like to see a US statement that A, may a culpa in the past to the extent we didn't respect decisions of International Tribunal and B, China is wrong to do that but I hope we won't reach that point. I hope the Chinese leadership long before this arbitration concludes will revert to the pattern of Deng Xiaoping and other leaders who have tried to win favor with the world community by demonstrating the brilliance of their imagination and flexibility. That's what we're trying to raise the cost as was said of the current situation and China can lead the world now if it does the right thing or it can look like dictators who were opposed during the 20th century and that's not an attractive China. Yes, could I just cut in here because Professor Cohen has already addressed the point already, it's one of non-appearance and the political consequences. I'm sure that's on the mind of the most of the audience but I want to give an answer as a lawyer. I just find myself in the course of the presentations constantly drawn into political debates and guessings. So only second guessing because you have no idea about the facts behind the moves of the respective countries. I'm say this as a form of objective point of view. I have a none, I know nothing about the background especially the critical information that determine the cause of action taken by the countries but what I want to say is this, the lawyer, there's no good or bad as far as the non-appearance is concerned. If you look at the text of article nine of the Annex Seven of the Law of the Sea Convention which explicitly provides for non-appearance if the negotiating states back in 1982 did not want it to happen, want to get everybody on board, they should have done so at that time, not now. The text of the convention is set in stone unless you want to trigger the amendment procedures provided for in the convention in articles 311 and 312. If you do not want to do it you have to respect the text of the convention but I'm not saying this non-appearance is unique to the law of the sea since it's common to international adjudication as every international lawyer knows well. I mean, let me give you one example. You probably remember what the US did back in 1986. 1984, let's say, not 86. When the US lost the case, lost the jurisdictional and the invisibility phase in the Nicaragua case. US refused to appear before the court anymore while sending a very lengthy basically rejoinder to attack the court's judgment on jurisdiction and admissibility. Nobody would say the US did something really, really bad by doing so. No, because it's entirely permissible in the statute of ICD to not appear before the court. It's the choice of the sovereign states. The statute, by the way, was drafted back in 1946. What do you expect? At the time, the international new order was just emergent and the system was created on the basis of the existing principles of international sovereign equality. What do you expect? If you want to change that you have to change the fundamental documents underpinning the current international legal order. Otherwise, you have to respect the text of the documents. That's all. Thank you. So despite the brilliance of our panel, we have not solved the legal issues in the South China Sea this afternoon, but that does give us one advantage. We have another excuse to organize another conference next year. But before we sign off, because there are such big differences, I would like to give everybody one minute, literally one minute, I'm gonna have to cut you off because we need to stop to make any one or two points you wanna make. I don't know if we wanna start that into the table, Henry. Thank you. I'll be fast. Dr. Jamid Bin mentioned several points. On the coastline, the coastline is not arbitrary. It's a question of fact. You can have satellites, you can identify the low water marks. It's not subject to the determination of my arbitrary discretion. Exchange of ideas. We've had 120 meetings. I've headed many of those meetings. It's very difficult to negotiate when the starting point is I own everything and the only option left for you is joint development. Third point, with respect to historic title, historic right, is correct. These are two different things. And that's why there is jurisdiction because there is no historic title, just historic rights. But a historic claim does not mature, does not become a historic title, historic right, unless by general international law, they're able to satisfy the criteria, including acquisitions and usage of time. We have demonstrated the nine dashed line never satisfied. That no country has acquires to the nine dashed line. Last point, on the exchange of ideas, if they're willing to negotiate and they said it's complicated, it's since there are many countries that are claiming it cannot be a pure bilateral. How is it that they have rejected the multilateral discussion on the South China Sea? My final point. Dr. Bingbing made so many points and they're very interesting. How I love that these ideas are put forward in the proper forum, allowing ourselves the possibility of resolution of those issues before an objective court. Thank you very much. Dr. Da. I would like to start my conclusion by quoting a quotation from a very famous Chinese scholar, Confucius, and Chinese Nid Kong Su, and Vietnam Hong Tu. Faced with what is right, to live it undone shows a lack of courage. We, as Vietnamese, we think that we have the rights in the South China Sea, we have sufficient evidence to show our evidence, to show our sovereignty over the Paracels and other islands in the South China Sea. So we are not scared going into, in front of international court to discuss that. We are not scared to negotiate about that. But, you know, faced with our good willingness, one say, we don't want to go to court on that and we don't want to negotiate about that. Okay, if you don't want to negotiate about sovereignty issues, you don't want to negotiate about entitlement issues. No, sovereignty and entitlement is rated. So then, what left? What can be done about that? I think one of the important thing I have to mention here is good faith in the international law. If you want to solve issues in international relations, you need good faith. And we have shown enough good faith and I expect the same good faith from other claimants, especially from China. Thank you. Sherry. That's a very good point. I just have three points. One, I hope China will increasingly consider its long run common interests with the others, not only in the neighborhood, but in the world. Second, we must not condemn countries for trying to defend themselves, not through force, but by presenting their legal arguments to a fair, impartial, tribunal. Third point, and this makes the transition to our discussion tomorrow about confidence building measures. I like very much what Dr. Dong did toward the end of his talk today. He's making positive proposals. We must not allow litigation to be the end. It has to be a means to an end. And the end requires positive thinking and imaginative proposals and persistence and persuasiveness. I don't want to give up on that, as I'll say tomorrow, with respect to China. We have to keep trying to come up with good proposals that may make them see the attractiveness of not resorting to force. I fully share what Professor Koen had just said. To find solutions positively and proactively, not just sitting waiting for the result to happen. But I want to add one more legal point. Negotiation consultation dialogue is not a matter of a political gimmick. It's a legal obligation. That's why China insists on it. The obligation has been there, and suddenly the two obligee divert their attention to do some other things. If you're talking about good faiths, at least you try to keep your promise and undertaking. Especially when the undertaking is no less a legal obligation to negotiate. Thank you. Dr. Jha, thank you. So please join me in thanking Henry, Dr. Dang, Jerry, and Dr. Jha. Thank you very much.