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Title:
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Chinese Ministry of Agriculture
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Author:
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Julian Ku, Chris Mirasola
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Source:
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Lawfare
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Date:
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March 7, 2017
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Description:
- Last week, Chinese media reported that the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has promulgated a summer fishing moratorium that includes many parts of the South China Sea. An arbitral tribunal formed pursuant to the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea decided this past July that a substantially similar 2012 fishing moratorium disregarded the Philippines’ sovereign rights to manage the living resources of its EEZ. The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture’s decision to promulgate a fishing moratorium this summer with these same legal defects confirms that China continues to violate important elements of international maritime law generally and the arbitral tribunal’s award in particular. This moratorium also threatens to undermine the budding China-Philippines rapprochement over their South China Sea disputes.
