The Spratly Islands And International Law

The Spratly Islands and International Law examines legal solutions to problems arising from the absence of maritime boundaries in the Spratly Islands. The book draws on extensive sources of international law and formulates novel, concrete proposals for the way forward.

"In The Spratly Islands and International Law, Xuechan Ma offers a detailed analysis of legal solutions to achieve coexistence and cooperation in the Spratly Islands in the absence of maritime delimitation.

Explains the continuing struggle between the contesting countries over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, the origins of which are partly historic and partly based on argumentation arising from the provisions of the Law of the Sea. Each country's standpoint is described in relation to its claim and is related to the modes of acquisition of territory according to the principles of international law. The reasoning related to these claims is quite different in the post-war period from that before World War II, a reflection of changed political and economic (natural resource exploitation) circumstances - Introduction.

This exceptional volume deals with the hotly contested legal status of the Paracels and the Spratlys, two inhospitable archipelagos located in the South China Sea, sovereignty over which is disputed by several states. The author investigates the contribution which international law can make towards determining the rights of all parties involved. In order to do so she goes back into history to find out at each stage what the actual situation was and what its legal significance was in terms of the legal categories of the time. The originality of this work, compared to others already published on this topic, lies in its analysis of the valuable French archives. Not only these archives, but also existing legal writings have served as a basis for the investigation into the status of the archipelagos. The book sheds new and significant light on this important question.

In The Regime of Islands Reframed, Clive Schofield examines the definition of islands and other insular features under the international law of the sea with particular reference to the South China Sea case between China and the Philippines which has served to reframe understanding of this contentious area of international law.

This book should be helpful to decision-makers, negotiators, and academics desirous of a peaceful solution to these disputes.