Hong Kong group may push court to postpone ruling on South China Sea case

A legal organization in Hong Kong submitted documents to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, arguing that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the "nine-dash line" lawsuit.

Daniel Fung, president of the Asia-Pacific Institute of International Law, based in Hong Kong. Photo: Xinhua

Mainland Chinese analysts believe that legal opinions submitted by the Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific Institute of International Law to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague could delay the court's decision on the "nine-dash line" case, which was expected to be issued earlier this month.

In a 41-page legal document, the institute argued that the case, which is mainly about a dispute between overlapping claimants including Beijing and Manila, falls outside the court's jurisdiction.

The organization is led by lawyer Daniel Fung and its views are supported by a number of legal experts from Hong Kong, Britain and Australia, Xinhua reported.

"Our motive is not to argue whether the Philippines or China is right. Instead, we want to maintain the perfection of the international legal system and the perfection of the arbitration court - one of the instruments of the system," Fung said in an interview with Xinhua.

“We do not want to see the international legal system destroyed or discredited,” he added.

Professor Xu Xiaobing, an international law expert at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said the institute's legal stance could bring new uncertainty to the case, which is widely seen as tilted against China.

"There are growing signs that the verdict may be postponed due to the latest developments surrounding the case," he said.

The PCA has not yet formally responded to the institute's legal arguments.

China has blatantly claimed sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, despite opposition from the international community. The Philippines filed a lawsuit against China’s unilateral sovereignty claim with the PCA in 2013. The PCA in 2015 declared that it had jurisdiction over the case. Meanwhile, China has insisted that it does not accept the lawsuit and refuses to participate in the case.

According to SCMP, China has been conducting an unprecedented propaganda campaign in the past three months to question the court’s authority and enlist support from other countries. Mr. Basilio Araujo, an Indonesian maritime security expert, affirmed that China would be isolated by the international community if it did not comply with the international arbitration court’s ruling in the South China Sea dispute.

According to VNE