The South China Sea represents a classical TERRITORIAL
DISPUTE in which several international agents claim sovereign rights for
different reasons over the same area. Regionally, with a direct or indirect implication,
we have China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand,
Cambodia. In addition to the regional claimants, there are many other
international actors. The previous posts introduced Australia, Japan and the
United States. The solution seems to require a mutually exclusive relation
amongst them because it is assumed that the sovereignty over the arwa can be
granted to only one of them. Indeed, sovereignty is often regarded as an
absolute concept (that is to say, exclusive, and not shareable).
The South China Sea is a clear example of a zero sum
game, with many negative outcomes of different sorts (e.g. inefficient
exploitation of natural resources, tension in international relations, and
threat to local, regional and international peace). Thus, while these conflicts
are in principle confined to specific areas and start with negative
consequences primarily for the local population, they tend quickly to expand to
the regional and—even—the international level (e.g. effects on international
price of oil, war). There are many issues at stake domestically and
internationally.
Time to solve the dispute over the South China Sea. Territory, in
principle, can be defined as an area owned and possessed by the population (in
land, water, space and, perhaps, cyberspace). Like population, it may have
features that could cause controversy in TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. The next posts
will review some of the features that constitute territory using the South
China Sea conflict as an example. Next time we center the attention on borders,
natural resources and defense.
Let us remember the way in why this series
propose to deal with TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. The allocation
of sovereignty will be given by: a) equal right to participate (egalitarian
consensus principle); b) the nature and degree of participation depends on
efficiency of accomplishing the particular objective/area/activity at issue
(principle of efficiency); c) each party receives a benefit (in terms of rights
and opportunities) that depends on what that party cooperates with
(input-to-output ratio principle); and d) provided the party with greater
ability and therefore greater initial participation rights has the obligation
to bring the other two parties towards equilibrium (equilibrium proviso). I
call this way of dealing with sovereignty conflicts or disputes the EGALITARIAN
SHARED SOVEREIGNTY.
Many questions are to be expected. Amongst them: How is
that translated into geographical borders amongst the many claimants? What
about the exploration and exploitation of natural resources? This question has
two parts: a) the sea-zone surrounding islands only; and b) the portion of
sea-zone that overlaps in cases like China and Vietnam. Finally, in the
hypothetical scenario that a party alien to the original dispute decided
conduct activities (for example, exploitation of natural resources, invasion),
who should defend the disputed area?
The next posts on this blog series about TERRITORIAL
DISPUTES will cover these questions.
NOTE: based on Chapter 7, Núñez, Jorge Emilio. 2017. Sovereignty Conflicts and
International Law and Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue. London and New
York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter:
@London1701
24th September 2018
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