| 英文摘要 |
The Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) issued its award in the arbitration case concerning the South China Sea disputes between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China on July 12, 2016, which concluded, inter alia, that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources, in excess of the rights provided for by the UNCLOS, within the sea areas falling within the “nine-dash line”, and that Taiping Island (Itu Aba), the largest naturally formed feature in the Spratly Islands, is a “rock” in accordance with Article 121(3) of the Convention. The Tribunal’s ruling attracted high attention from Taiwan’s government and people to the case. In response, a number of policy suggestions, aiming at safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, sovereign right, and jurisdiction in the South China Sea and managing Taiping Island in the future, have been proposed. The purposes of this article are twofold: first, it examines the development in the arbitral proceedings and the content of the award; second, it discusses how Taiwan should treat the outcome of the case. |
