Spotlight: Permanent Court of Arbitration neither permanent nor a court

The arbitral tribunal in the South China Sea case unilaterally initiated by the Philippines, with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) as its secretariat, issued an award on Tuesday amid a global chorus that the panel has no jurisdiction over the case.

The law-abusing award raised irritation among world leaders, experts and scholars of insight, and the authority and justice of its birthplace PCA were widely questioned.

Analysts said the PCA is neither permanent nor a court, and its award has nothing to do with justice, only a paid service.

PCA TRIBUNAL NOT PERMANENT

The PCA was founded in 1900 according to The Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which was approved in 1899 at the First Hague Conference. China's Qing Dynasty acceded to the convention in 1904, which made China a signatory state.

International arbitration must respect the states' will when it comes to international law. The 1899 Hague Convention stipulates that international arbitration must be applied on the basis of respect for law and only after failure of diplomatic means.

Within the PCA, there is only an International Bureau acting as the registry body in arbitration cases along with a Permanent Administrative Council exercising administrative control over the bureau.

The tribunals are selected by the concerning states from a given name list, which means the judges are appointed according to the ad hoc cases and there is no fixed college of judges.

PCA NOT PROFESSIONAL

At the beginning of the PCA, it only made arbitration on the disputes between nation-states. However, during a long period of time, it was idled. To maintain its existence, the PCA extended its arbitration realm to disputes between nation-states and international organizations as well as disputes between nation-states and private sectors.

Therefore, the PCA in nature is neither a specialized agency for intergovernmental legal issues, nor an experienced organization for territorial disputes, China's Wenhui Daily quoted an international relations scholar Zhou Sixie as saying.

Moreover, if there is excess of power in an arbitration, the result can be regarded null, according to the International Law Commission, which was established by the UN General Assembly in 1947, Zhou said.

He took the North-Eastern Boundary case between Canada and the United States as an example. The tribunal ignored the two boundary lines claimed by the two sides, but drew a third line instead, which was regarded as a typical example of excess of power, and led to the invalidity of the arbitration.

PAID SERVICE

Different form the International Court of Justice, whose budget comes entirely from the United Nations, the PCA is paid by the signatory states of the 1899 Hague Convention. The fees related to arbitration cases and the salaries of the judges are paid by the parties in arbitration.

According to sources, the expenses related to the tribunal in the South China Sea arbitration case amounted to 2.85 million euros, which should be split equally by the two parties concerned.

However, the Philippines had paid the tribunal for its own part as well as China's, since China has proclaimed its stance of nonacceptance of and nonparticipation in the case from the outset.

Therefore, some analysts questioned the tribunal's justice and authority, given the fact that it has expanded its jurisdiction and heard the case without the consent of China. Endi