Hanoi may yet take Beijing to court.
By Shawn W. Crispin for The Diplomat
August 03, 2016
Will Vietnam follow the Philippines in legally challenging through international arbitration China’s claim to territories it contests in the South China Sea (SCS)? Weeks after The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration’s landmark ruling on July 12, an international law based decision that delegitimized most of China’s expansive claims in its controversial “nine-dash line” map for the maritime area, Vietnam’s Communist Party leaders are under rising political pressure to leverage the precedent to press its own claims over the contested Paracel archipelago.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry welcomed the tribunal’s highly anticipated ruling, saying in a statement that it “strongly supports” dispute resolution in the SCS through “peaceful measures, including diplomatic and legal procedures.” The statement also reaffirmed Vietnam’s claim to the two archipelagos (the Spratlys and the Paracels) under the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). State media have since published a series of comments by local officials and experts who have argued for filing a similar arbitration suit against China at the Hague.
