Manila's hyping up of illegal 'arbitral award' nothing but a damp squib

The so-called"2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea" was a farce played by the Philippines to justify its ill-grounded claims to Chinese islands and islets in the South China Sea. It was illegal, null and void, and nonbinding from the very beginning, and will remain so despite Manila's renewed attempt to try to revive its dying embers and mislead the international community.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs released a statement on the ninth anniversary of the "arbitral award", while its top diplomat delivered a speech to hype the anniversary, with the clear intention of playing up the issue again.

The Philippines unilaterally initiated the so-called "arbitration case" to challenge China's sovereignty over territories in the South China Sea and give itself "a legal basis" for its illegal occupation of Chinese islands and islets. However, the "arbitration case" lacked the necessary precondition of prior consultations and failed to meet the principle of state consent, which is fundamental to arbitration. Therefore, it did not possess the legal basis to proceed from the outset.