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Backgrounder: Timeline of Philippines' unilaterally initiated South China Sea arbitration case

Xinhua, June 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague has said on Wednesday that an arbitral tribunal with widely contested jurisdiction will issue an award on July 12 on the South China Sea case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines.

The following is the timeline of the South China Sea arbitration case the government of outgoing Philippine President Benigno Aquino III initated without China's participation or support.

Jan. 22, 2013 -- The Philippines submitted a Notification and Statement of Claim to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to initiate compulsory arbitration proceedings under Article 287 and Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982, "Convention" ) with respect to the dispute with China over "maritime jurisdiction" in the South China Sea.

A five-member arbitral tribunal ("Arbitral Tribunal") was then created by then ITLOS president and former Japanese ambassador to the United States Shunji Yanai. It is chaired by Judge Thomas A. Mensah of Ghana, and the other members are Judge Jean-Pierre Cot of France, Judge Stanislaw Pawlak of Poland, Professor Alfred Soons of the Netherlands, and Judge Rudiger Wolfrum of Germany. It has the PCA in The Hague, the Netherlands, as its office of registry.

Feb. 19, 2013 -- The Chinese Government rejected and returned the Philippines' note verbale together with the attached Notification and Statement of Claim.

It has subsequently reiterated that it will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration thus initiated by the Philippines.

July 11, 2013 -- The Arbitral Tribunal called its first meeting in The Hague.

Aug. 1, 2013 -- The Chinese Government presented a note to the PCA reaffirming its rejection to the Philippines unilaterally initiating the ITLOS arbitration.

March 30, 2014 -- The Arbitral Tribunal received a legal document from the Philippines that contained 15 submissions.

The submissions dispute China's sea rights in the South China Sea, request a definition of what the reefs concerned really are and clarification of the sea rights they project, as well as alleging an invalidity of China's related activities there.

Dec. 7, 2014 -- China released the Position Paper of the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Matter of Jurisdiction in the South China Sea Arbitration Initiated by the Republic of the Philippines.

The Paper elaborates China's argument that the Arbitral Tribunal does not have jurisdiction over the Philippines' submissions, expounding why the Convention is inapplicable to a situation that involves territorial sovereignty, while reaffirming China's rejection of and non-participation in the arbitration.

Oct. 29, 2015 -- After court hearings on July 7-13, 2015, the Arbitral Tribunal announced that it has jurisdiction to consider seven of the Philippines' submissions while reserving consideration of its jurisdiction to rule on the other submissions to the merits phase.

Nov. 30, 2015 -- The Arbitral Tribunal concluded hearings with a final ruling to be issued in 2016. Endi