The 2016 South China Sea Arbitration and the Limits of International Law

The Diplomat

2 days ago

The 2016 award did not bring a conclusive resolution to the Philippines' maritime dispute with China in the South China Sea. What other options are there?
Nine years have passed since the arbitral tribunal established under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) issued its renowned award regarding the case brought by the Philippines against China on the legal status of its nine-dashed line and historic rights over the South China Sea. The arbitral tribunal ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines, and declared China's nine-dashed line and its claimed historic rights over the South China Sea to have no legal basis under the UNCLOS.
Since the ruling was released on July 12, 2016, the Chinese government has repeatedly iterated its policy of 'non-acceptance and non-recognition.' On July 12, 2025, the ninth anniversary of the ruling, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson categorically referred to the award as 'nothing but a piece of waste paper that is illegal, null and void, and non-binding.'
The Philippines and a handful of its extraregional partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Australia, and Canada, issued public commemorations of the award. However, most of the Southeast Asian states aside from the Philippines, including other claimants in the South China Sea disputes, have remained silent. Such regional reticence reflects an unspoken recognition of the limitation of international law in resolving the historically embedded geopolitical disputes, especially when one of the key stakeholders outright rejects its legitimacy.
Contrary to many expectations, the 2016 Arbitral Award did not bring the Philippines the conclusive victory in its territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea. Instead, it dragged the Philippines, and on many occasions, the United States too, into a long and fraught war of diplomatic attrition and legal posturing.
The contested legacy of the 2016 Arbitral Award – marked by the protracted stalemate between China and the Philippines – calls for a more honest reckoning of the limits of international legal mechanisms in the face of entrenched power politics. Why has the authority of international law failed to bring more stability to the South China Sea, and what other options do we have in pursuit of peaceful South China Sea?
Legal Outcome Depends on Political Will
The 2016 South China Sea arbitration case laid bare a fundamental truth often overlooked in discussions of international law: the effectiveness of international legal rulings ultimately depends on the political will of the parties involved. Implementation of international law requires enforcement, endorsement, and sustained commitment of capable actors. It is unrealistic to expect voluntary compliance when one of the key parties' national interests is undermined by a legal ruling.
This situation is not unique to the South China Sea. On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. However, even after the issuance of the warrant, Putin was still able to travel freely within non-ICC member states, such as his high-profile trip to China in 2024. He even made an official visit to an ICC member state – Mongolia, where he received a warm red carpet welcome with full honors. No attempt was ever made to detain him.
In a similar case, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2024 for his 'crimes against humanity.' However, merely five months later, Netanyahu was able to make an official visit to Hungary, another ICC member state. The Hungarian government not only refused to fulfill its legal obligations to the ICC by arresting Netanyahu, but the Hungarian prime minister even claimed that Hungary would pull out of the ICC altogether.
In both cases mentioned above, the implementation of international legal rulings was not only unsuccessful; they were never meaningfully pursued in the first place. The ICC arrest warrants against Putin and Netanyahu, lacking the necessary support from its own member states, remained merely symbolic in nature, and have failed to produce any tangible results for the two sitting world leaders. The warrants themselves, facing strong political resistance, have been reduced to a statement of principle, instead of an actionable mandate.
Successful executions of ICC arrest warrants for a national leader are not entirely without precedent. On March 11, 2025, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in his own country by the Philippine National Police and surrendered to the ICC's custody on March 28. However, Duterte has already ordered the Philippines to withdraw from the ICC, meaning that the government of his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., actually had no legal obligation to comply with the arrest warrant against Duterte. Instead, Duterte's arrest was heavily shadowed by the ongoing rivalry between the two powerful Duterte and Marcos families for domination over domestic politics.
Since 2022 – before the relationship between the two families had gone sour – Marcos himself has repeatedly asserted that ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines, and that the Philippine government will not cooperate in its investigation against Duterte. However, as frictions mounted between the Marcoses and the Dutertes, the president had a change of heart. When the arrest warrant was delivered to Marcos on March 11, he quickly ordered the arrest of his predecessor on the exact same day.
Duterte's arrest has exposed a key fact about the implementation of international law: even in the absence of formal legal obligation, the international legal rulings can still be carried out with zeal if it fits the strategic interests of the sitting government. The Duterte case is not an exemplification of the authority of the ICC, but a result of a confluence between the Philippines' domestic political struggle and international law.
The 2016 Arbitral Award Lacks Political Traction
Domestically, the 2016 Arbitral Award has become more than a legal matter – it is now widely perceived as a matter of national dignity and identity for China. The profound territorial concessions during China's 'Century of Humiliation' have left a lasting imprint on the national psyche of China. In Chinese political discourse and public consciousness, the integrity of territory – land or sea – has become an intensely sensitive matter. It is politically non-negotiable and has left very little room for any perceived concession or setbacks. Against such a background, accepting an international ruling that categorically declared China's nine-dash line – one that traces back to the eleven-dash line originally published by the Republic of China government in 1947 – as illegal is not only unacceptable, but also politically unviable. Strong resistance from China against the 2016 Arbitral Award was thus inevitable.
At the regional and international level, the 2016 Arbitral Award is also struggling to garner sufficient support for its full implementation.
On June 14, 2016, weeks before the award came out, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his ASEAN counterparts in Kunming, China for a Special ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers' Meeting. After the meeting, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a sternly worded joint statement expressing serious concerns over the recent developments in the South China Sea. However, less than three hours after its release, the joint statement was retracted for 'urgent amendments.'
After the Arbitral Award was released on July 12, the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting held in Vientiane produced a new joint communiqué with significantly softened language avoiding any direct reference to the ruling. Nine years later, ASEAN is still struggling to achieve any consensus regarding the 2016 SCS Arbitration Award.
As a result, the 2016 Arbitral Award, despite its legal sophistication, has failed to generate the kind of collective political backing within South China Sea border states that might have enhanced its enforceability. In the absence of a collective regional enforcement mechanism and a unified ASEAN position, Beijing's strategic calculus has remained consistent: the perceived practical costs of compliance continue to outweigh the reputational cost of maintaining its current stance.
Structural Limitations of International Law
The international legal system lacks a central enforcement mechanism akin to a police force. The effectiveness of international law rulings very much depends on the political will, institutional support, and the strategic interests of states. Such structural limitation has become exceptionally evident in high-stakes geopolitical disputes, where legal outcomes often clash with entrenched national interests, such as in the cases of the ICC arrest warrant of Putin, Netanyahu, and Duterte, and the 2016 South China Sea case.
Because of the voluntary compliance nature of international law, when powerful actors view the legal decisions as a violation of their national interest, compliance usually becomes unlikely, if not impossible. The 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award is a case in point: despite UNCLOS and the arbitral tribunal's authority, in the absence of enforcement mechanisms, regional consensus, or any recognition of legitimacy from the Chinese government, the legal ruling has failed to resolve the longstanding dispute between China and the Philippines, one that even predates the establishment of UNCLOS itself.
None of this is to say that international law has been irrelevant in resolving regional disputes. On the contrary, it has played an important role in setting legal baselines, shaping global expectations, and providing smaller states with language and leverage in asserting their rights. But an isolated legal decision rendered in the absence of a key party's recognition and participation is unlikely, on its own, to advance the peaceful resolution of a dispute as complex and historically rooted as the South China Sea issue. Without meaningful political engagement from both of the parties involved and mutual recognition of interests, even the most well-founded legal judgment will have very little practical impact in reality. It is more likely to harden the positions of both parties, instead of building consensus.
At the end of the day, the resolution of the South China Sea disputes cannot only depend on legal clarity. It also requires political willingness, mutual recognition of each other's core concerns, and meaningful diplomatic engagement. International law should offer a framework for both parties to work with each other towards a resolution – it cannot provide a final answer and expect it to enable its own enforcement without resistance. The materialization of international legal norms into reality should be embedded in dialogue, compromise, and regional political process. In the future, it is critical for both sides, the Chinese government and the Philippines, to commit to sustained, good-faith engagement – seeking not to impose unilateral outcomes, but to manage differences through pragmatic cooperation and a shared commitment to regional stability.