The ship huddle was first spotted at Whitsun Reef last November. More than 100 vessels linked by ropes drifted around the northern end of the Spratly Islands for days. The Philippine Coast Guard’s attempts to establish radio contact with the ships were unsuccessful. “There is no one there,” a government official told a Manila newspaper. The Coast Guard described the incident as … Read more
Advertisement On August 28, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources released a new, government-sanctioned, “standard map,” which drew immediate attention for a particular detail: a 10-dash line in the South China Sea. Previously known as the “nine-dash line,” the Chinese maritime claim encroaches upon the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and … Read more
Advertisement On July 13, 2016, the day after issuing the South China Sea Arbitration Award (Merits), the Chinese government released a white paper titled “China Adheres to the Position of Settling Through Negotiation the Relevant Disputes between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.” In this paper, China claims that, in accordance with … Read more
Advertisement On May 1, 2023, the MV Pablo caught fire off Malaysia’s coast and exploded, burning out completely. Fortunately, the tanker was empty of oil, thus limiting the environmental damage caused by the accident. Yet three people were killed and four were seriously injured in the explosion. The MV Pablo is part of the world’s … Read more
Asia Defense And in doing so, test the definition of a “strait.” Advertisement Japan defined its territorial seas as extending 12 nautical miles seaward with the enactment of the Act on Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone in 1977. However, there are still several sea areas where the breadth of territorial waters is 3 nautical miles, … Read more
Advertisement Southeast Asia’s economic progress largely depends on a network of sea lines of communication (SLOCs) protected by an international legal system, largely codified in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other maritime conventions, as well as customary international law. For this reason, the Association of Southeast Asian … Read more
Advertisement Under the 1994 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the high seas constitute the waters that lie beyond the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of any littoral country. While UNCLOS established principles mainly related to freedom of navigation, it lacks detailed provisions on environmental conservation and stewardship of the high seas. The … Read more