The 

Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute between China, Taiwan,

Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei, concerning "ownership" of the Spratly Islands, a
group of islands and associated "maritime features" (reefs, banks, cays, etc.) located in the South
China Sea. The dispute is characterized by diplomatic stalemate and the employment of military
pressure techniques (such as military occupation of disputed territory) in the advancement of
national territorial claims. All except Brunei occupy some of the maritime features. Most of the
"maritime features" in this area have at least six names: The "International name", usually in
English; the "Chinese name", sometimes different for PRC and ROC (and also in different
character-sets); the Vietnamese, Philippine and Malaysian names, and also, there are alternate
names (e.g. Spratly Island is also known as Storm Island), and sometimes names with European
origins (French, Portuguese, Spanish, British, etc.). The Spratly Islands are important for
economic and strategic reasons. The Spratly area holds potentially significant, but largely
unexplored, reserves of oil and natural gas, it is a productive area for world fishing, it is one of
the busiest areas of commercial shipping traffic, and surrounding countries would get
an extended continental shelf if their claims were recognized. In addition to economic incentives,
the Spratlys sit astride major maritime trade routes to Northeast Asia, giving them added
significance as positions from which to monitor maritime activity in the South China Sea and to
potentially base and project military force from. In 2014, China drew increased international
attention due to its dredging activities within the Spratlys, amidst speculation it is planning to
further develop its military presence in the area. In 2015 satellite imagery revealed that China
was rapidly constructing an airfield on Fiery Cross Reef within the Spratlys whilst continuing its
land reclamation activities at other sites. Only China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC), and Vietnam have
made claims based on historical sovereignty of the islands. The Philippines, however, claims part
of the area as its territory under UNCLOS, an agreement parts of which have been ratified by the
countries involved in the Spratly islands dispute.
There are multiple reasons why the neighboring nations in particular, and the rest of the
world in general, would be interested in the Spratly Islands. The reasons of the dispute are (1)
Hydrocarbons, (2) commercial fishing (3) commercial shipping
In 1968, oil was discovered in the region. The Geology and Mineral Resources Ministry
of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has estimated that the Spratly area holds oil and natural
gas reserves of 17.7 billion tons (1.60 × 1010 kg),[citation needed] compared to the 13 billion
tons (1.17 × 1010 kg) held by Kuwait, placing it as, potentially, the fourth largest reserve bed in
the world. The United States Energy Information Administration contests this, estimating almost
no oil and less than 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas exists in fields near the Spratly Islands.
Still, these large potential reserves have assisted in intensifying the territorial claims of the
neighboring countries. In 1968 and 1970, the Philippines started to take their territorial claims
more seriously and stationed troops on three islands which had been claimed by the adventurer
Tomas Cloma as part of Freedom land. In 1973, Vietnamese troops were stationed on five
islands. On 11 March 1976, the first major Philippine oil discovery occurred off the coast of
Palawan, near the Spratly Islands territory. In 2010, these oil fields supplied 15% of all
petroleum consumed in the Philippines. In 1992, the PRC and Vietnam granted oil exploration
contracts to US oil companies that covered overlapping areas in the Spratlys. In May 1992, the
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Crestone Energy (a US company based
in Denver, Colorado) signed a co-operation contract for the joint exploration of the Wan'an Bei-
21 block, a 25,155 square kilometres (9,710 sq mi) section of the southwestern South China Sea
that includes Spratly Island areas. Part of the Crestone's contract covered Vietnam's blocks 133
and 134, where PetroVietnam, PetroStar Energy (US) and ConocoPhillips Vietnam Exploration
& Production, a unit of ConocoPhillips, agreed to evaluate prospects in April 1992. This led to a
confrontation between China and Vietnam, with each demanding that the other cancel its
contract.
The region is one of the world's most productive areas for commercial fishing. In 2010,
the Western Central Pacific (excluding the northernmost reaches of the South China Sea closest
to the PRC coast) accounted for 14% of the total world catch at 11.7 million tonnes. This was up
from less than 4 million tonnes in 1970. The PRC has predicted that the South China Sea holds
combined fishing and oil and gas resources worth one trillion dollars.[citation needed] There
have already been numerous clashes between the PRC and the Philippines, PRC and Vietnam,
and between other nations over "foreign" fishing vessels in exclusive economic zones (EEZs),
and the media[which?] regularly report the arrest of Chinese fishermen. In 1984, Brunei
established an exclusive fishing zone encompassing Louisa Reef in the southeastern Spratly
Islands.
The region is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. During the 1980s, at least
270 ships passed through the Spratly Islands region each day. More than half of the world's
supertanker traffic, by tonnage, passes through the region's waters every year. Tanker traffic
through the South China Sea is over three times greater than through the Suez Canal and five
times more than through the Panama Canal; 25% of the world's crude oil passes through the
South China Sea.
Via UNCLOS, the United Nations provided for countries with coastlines to submit claims
to the UN's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), (for their continental
shelf to be extended beyond 200 nautical miles of their shores), by 13 May 2009. A total of 48
nations made full claims, and dozens more made preliminary submissions. Two of the
submissions made to the CLCS addressed claims in the South China Sea (SCS) – one by
Vietnam for a claim over the northern portion of the SCS (which included the Paracel Islands),
and another jointly by Vietnam and Malaysia for a joint claim over a "defined area" in the middle
of the SCS between the two countries, which included part of the Spratly Islands. Brunei made a
preliminary submission notifying of its intention to claim a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical
miles from its shores. China (PRC) immediately issued protests over the two submissions and
called on the United Nations not to consider them. It also issued a stern warning to countries not
to claim the islands which it said were its sovereign territory.
On 23 May 2011, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III warned the visiting Chinese
Defense Minister Liang Guanglie of a possible arms race in the region if tensions worsened over
disputes in the South China Sea. In March, the Philippines complained that Chinese patrol boats
had harassed a Philippine oil exploration vessel in disputed waters near the Spratlys, and
subsequently filed a formal protest at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
On 22 January 2013, the Philippines instituted arbitral proceedings against the People's
Republic of China in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). On 19 February 2013, China
rejected and returned the Philippines' Notification. The Permanent Court of Arbitration acts as
Registry in this arbitration. Philippine Justice Antonio T. Carpio states that the case is solely a
maritime dispute, and not territorial in nature. The Philippines seeks clarification from the
tribunal as to whether China's 9-dashed line can negate the Philippines' Exclusive Economic
Zone as guaranteed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), of
which China is a signatory. As part of the case, the Philippines also seeks clarification on
whether rocks barely (1.8-meter) above water at high tide, (such as Scarborough Shoal), generate
a 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) EEZ, or only a 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) territorial
sea. Clarification of whether China can appropriate low-tide elevations, such as the Mischief
Reef and the Subi Reef within the Philippines' EEZ, have also been included in the case. "The
Philippines is not asking the tribunal to delimit by nautical measurements overlapping EEZs
between China and the Philippines. The Philippines is also not asking the tribunal what country
has sovereignty over an island, or rock above water at high tide, in the West Philippine Sea."
According to a PCA press release on 12 July 2016 "[The] Tribunal concluded that, as
between the Philippines and China, there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to
resources, in excess of the rights provided for by the Convention, within the sea areas falling
within the ‘nine-dash line The Philippines' claims are based on sovereignty over the Spratlys on
the issues of Res nullius and geography. The Philippines contend their claim was Res nullius as
there was no effective sovereignty over the islands until the 1930s when France and then Japan
acquired the islands. When Japan renounced their sovereignty over the islands according to the
San Francisco Treaty, there was a relinquishment of the right to the islands without any special
beneficiary. Therefore, the islands became Res nullius and available for annexation, according to
the claim.
In 1956, a private Filipino citizen, Tomás Cloma, unilaterally declared a state on 53
features in the South China Sea, calling it "Freedomland". The Republic of China moved to
occupy the main island in response.[citation needed] In December 1974, Cloma was arrested and
forced to sign a document to convey to the Philippines whatever rights he might have had in the
territory for one peso. Cloma sold his claim to the Philippine government, which annexed (de
jure) the islands in 1978, calling them Kalayaan.[citation needed] On 11 June 1978, President
Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines issued Presidential decree No. 1596, declaring the Spratly
Islands (referred to therein as the Kalayaan Island Group) as Philippine territory.
The Philippine claim to Kalayaan on a geographical basis can be summarised using the
assertion that Kalayaan is distinct from other island groups in the South China Sea, because of
the size of the biggest island in the Kalayaan group.[citation needed] A second argument used by
the Philippines regarding their geographical claim over the Spratlys is that all the islands claimed
by the Philippines lie within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone according to the 1982 United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This argument assumes that the islands were res
nullius. The Philippines also contend, under maritime law that the People's Republic of China
cannot extend its baseline claims to the Spratlys because the PRC is not an archipelagic state.
The Philippines believes that what ultimately counts is international law and that it
overrules other approaches to the dispute. This is visible in its discourse regarding the
Scarborough Shoal standoff, which continuously justifies the Filipino claim of the Shoal through
different UNCLOS articles whilst also delegitimizing the PRC’s historic claim by subjecting it to
international law; “Under public international law, for a historic claim to mature into a historical
title, a mere showing of long usage is not enough.” This is how the Philippines has come to view
the PRC’s actions regarding the Shoal as a “serious violation of the Philippines’ sovereignty and
maritime jurisdiction”[58] whilst its own occupation of the Scarborough Shoal is legal and
justified under UNCLOS. In this way the Filipino discourse engages with the PRC’s historic
claim, however, evaluates it according to ‘objective and impartial’ international law rather than
as historical ‘facts’. Consequently, the PRC’s historic claim must adhere to the specifics of
international law to be legitimate in the eyes of the Philippines. To some extent then, the Filipino
way of knowing in relation to the dispute is through international law. The Philippines believes
that international law points to what constitutes right from wrong. Much like the PRC, the
Philippines also think that we can learn from the past. However, the Philippines, rather than
believing in the lessons of history, believes that we can learn from past cases in international law.
The Filipino discourse for example refers to the Palmas Island Case as a precedent to the Spratly
one. Hence, it is through international law rather than history that the Philippines knows that the
Spratly Islands (i.e. the Kalayaan Group) belong to them. International law provides all the proof
that is needed.
The Filipino self-perception might be what led it to see the dispute through legal terms.
To some extent, the Philippines views itself as the less powerful actor, however, believes that the
law is the way to challenge the PRC. This thinking is visible in statements such as the
Department of Foreign Affairs’ call for Filipinos to “unite to support the President’s
constitutional mandate [i.e. the arbitration initiation] to protect Philippine territory and national
interest”. This exhibits a certain sense of the Philippines being the underdog, who can
nevertheless overcome the bigger powers by uniting in playing the game that we are all equal in;
the law. The Philippines thus remind us that “the law must apply both to the mighty and to the
weak, to the rich and to the poor alike.”