Stage set for South China Sea legal battle
The continued validity of Grotius’ doctrine of the mare liberum (The Free Sea) has never been in greater jeopardy than in today’s resource-rich South China Sea, where the competing territorial ambitions of China, the Philippines, and a host of other coastal states have been brought to the forefront of international attention following the Philippines’ bold endeavour to check China’s ‘creeping invasion’ by instituting proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
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