A research paper written by British law expert recently disclosed the weak points of the arbitral tribunal, who rendered an award on jurisdiction and admissibility of “South China Sea Arbitration” Initiated by the Philippines.

The paper was published in Chinese Journal of International Law. The author, Chris Whomersley, former deputy legal adviser to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, revealed that the arbitral tribunal was outside its jurisdiction when issues were related to maritime delimitation and disputes over territorial sovereignty.

He stressed that although the Philippines specifically disclaimed any wish to seek a ruling on either the sovereignty of land territory or maritime delimitation, “questions of territorial sovereignty, status of features and maritime delimitation are inextricably linked, to consider only one element out of these three is unreal and artificial, and worse it risks producing a distorted result.”

He pointed out that the tribunal “failed to recognize that the fundamental dispute is about the sovereignty over the features in the South China Sea, and that the status of the features, such as whether they are low-tide elevations or 'rocks,' is a question which can only logically be answered once the sovereignty dispute has been resolved.”

“The Tribunal should have got below the surface of the Philippines' claims, but it did not,” he wrote.