Here's a fun fact about Chinese devotion to international law:
China has consistently rejected international legal arbitration "partly because this would involve a multilateral institution but also because China does not have a strong case," according to a report entitled "Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea published last year by the Washington-based, non-partisan Center for New America Security (CNAS).
In 2011, China refused a Philippine proposal to submit their overlapping territorial and boundary claims to the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the body established under UNCLOS to settle maritime disputes between countries that have ratified the agreement. "Yet China opted out of ITLOS when it ratified UNCLOS, which means that China will almost certainly continue to oppose the proposal," the CNAS report states.
In any case, the UN tribunal lacks the power to enforce any decision on issues of national sovereignty. [emphasis added]
Huh. China didn't even commit to obeying decisions of the enforcement body of the treaty. So even if our influence inside the treaty is 100% dominant, it just wouldn't matter. That might have been something to note in those past discussions of the treaty. Perhaps the next time it is pushed, we can remember this fact.
Of course, not that the Law of the Sea even addresses questions of ownership in the first place. As far as I can see, the Law of the Sea has simply raised the stakes for controlling those islands..
Remember, for the Chinese, the law of the sea is "if we say it is ours--it's ours."
The ultimate guardian of freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of territorial disputes that safeguard our interests is American military power in the western Pacific and robust alliances with nations that share our rejection of expansionist Chinese claims.
