Trả lời câu hỏi phóng viên chiều ngày 25/5/2023, Phó Phát ngôn Bộ Ngoại giao Việt Nam Phạm Thu Hằng cho biết, tàu khảo sát Hướng Dương Hồng 10 (XYH-10) của Trung Quốc cùng một số tàu hải cảnh, tàu cá bảo vệ đã xâm phạm vùng đặc quyền kinh tế của Việt Nam được xác lập phù hợp với các quy định của Công ước Liên Hiệp Quốc về Luật biển năm 1982. Trước đó, theo tin từ Reuters, tàu XYH-10 cùng loạt tàu hộ tống đã xuất hiện tại vùng đặc quyền kinh tế của Việt Nam từ ngày 8/5.
Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Head of the Permanent Delegation of Vietnam to the United Nations (centre) at the event. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam, in coordination with Greece, Egypt and Senegal, on December 8 hosted a workshop on achievements and challenges since the adoption of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 40 years ago.
Main topics at the event were the outcomes of the convention, sea level rise and the relationship between UNCLOS and Sustainable Development Goal 14, which is to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc will make a historic visit to Indonesia, a G20 member and de facto leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), from Dec. 21–23, 2022, to reshape strategic ties between the two countries. President Phuc will be accompanied by First Lady Tran Nguyet Thin, several senior officials, and a business delegation.
This will be Phuc’s first visit to Indonesia ever since becoming Vietnam’s president on April 5, 2021. His state visit marks a new milestone in the 67 years of bilateral relations between Vietnam and Indonesia.
It is a commonplace observation that the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea establishes a framework for the Law of the Sea that is based upontwo different concepts. One is a zonal analysis, which takes the juridicalzones into which the seas are divided and stipulates the basic rules applica- ble to each of them in turn. The other is a topical analysis, taking some of themain activities on the seas, such as fishing, marine research and pollution,and again setting out the basic rules for each.
The framework is, however,incomplete, and a great deal is left open, not only to be worked out in moredetailed treaties but also to be governed by more general principles of inter-national law. In this way the 1982 regime will continue to develop to meet new challenges and changed circumstances.
In this monograph Dr Gavouneli explores these issues and offers an expertinsight into the jurisdictional developments that are clearly discernable aquarter-century after the adoption of the Convention. Her keen analysismoves from fundamental principles governing jurisdiction in internationallaw to shrewd reflections on the significance of current developments suchas the Proliferation Security Initiative and questions of jurisdiction over theinternational seabed area. This thoughtful text will be of real interest to allwho have a concern with the directions in which the contemporary Law of the Sea is growing.
We need only call to mind the first half of 2022 for an array of the extreme, energy-related global challenges we all face. Around the world, local versions of climate change effects—the temperatures, wildfires, droughts, storms, flooding—underscore how important it is for us to transition away from our overdependence on fossil fuels. And our energy sources don’t just have environmental implications but security ones as well. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the latest rendition of the resource curse. At the heart of it all, fossil fuels are what enabled and amplified the murderous narcissism we see in Vladimir Putin and created a country with an unbalanced and unhealthy domestic economy able to profoundly destabilize energy flows and prices around the world.
The South China Sea (SCS) brings together its own assortment of these complex challenges and factors. Competing security concerns, resource needs, and nationalisms shape the motivations of the claimants. Much of the attention and conflict has centred on the oil and gas in the seabed. Estimates of SCS hydrocarbon volumes vary; only some of these resources are proven reserves that have been confirmed and measured, and are actually recoverable. But even in more generous assessments, the SCS only provides us with a small percentage of the global total of oil and gas reserves, and even less of the overall energy mix if we include non-fossil-fuel energy sources.
Beyond hydrocarbons, in a two-way tie with the adjacent Coral Triangle, the SCS has the highest level of marine biodiversity in the world. SCS fisheries feed and employ millions of people in the region. It’s true that conflict over these living marine resources also drives the territorial disputes in the region, and a wide variety of human activity degrades the SCS ecosystem. Yet drilling for hydrocarbons in the SCS threatens this vulnerable marine habitat even more, while also clearly contributing to geopolitical and security tensions in the region—and to climate change.
Given how destabilizing oil and gas pursuits have been for the SCS since the 1970s, we might ask ourselves whether we want to keep drilling for fossil fuels there. Do the costs and risks outweigh the benefits?
Download this 21-page report (button above) from Dr. Tabitha Grace Mallory, an inaugural John H. McArthur Research Fellow, an initiative of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, and the Founder of China Ocean Institute and Affiliate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.
Below, explore the rich marine biodiversity of the South China Sea, one of the most hotly-contested maritime jurisdictions on the planet, in this original map created by the author and APF Canada graphic designer Chloe Fenemore, based on historical and contemporary maps cited in the full report.
Tabitha Grace Mallory is the Founder of China Ocean Institute and Affiliate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. Dr. Mallory specializes in Chinese foreign and environmental policy. She conducts research on China and global ocean governance and has published work on China’s fisheries and oceans policy.
Dr. Mallory is an inaugural John H. McArthur Research Fellow, an initiative of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada launched in 2021 to provide research opportunities for exceptional, mid-career scholars who are working on programs and research areas with direct relevance to Canada and Canada’s interests in Asia.
This photo taken on 20 August 2022, shows a worker sorting a fresh catch of fish at Sa Ky port on Vietnam’s offshore Ly Son island. Ly Son island, situated north-east of central Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province, is the country’s closest island to the disputed Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea region. (Photo: Nhac Nguyen / AFP)
This article is part of “UNCLOS 40th Anniversary Series – Why UNCLOS Matters” conceptualised by the Blue Security programme. The series, which commemorates the 40th anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, brings together established and emerging maritime security scholars from Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific to address the pertinence and relevance of UNCLOS. Blue Security brings together Australian and Southeast Asian experts to look at a range of maritime security issues across the region. The series was developed by Dr. Troy Lee-Brown and Dr. Bec Strating. It is published in collaboration with the team at Fulcrum.
UNCLOS’s relevance to Vietnam is significant, but the Convention must be updated if Vietnam and other signatories are to succeed in dealing with contemporary challenges in maritime affairs.
The Charter of the United Nations is the founding document of the United Nations. It was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945.
The United Nations can take action on a wide variety of issues due to its unique international character and the powers vested in its Charter, which is considered an international treaty. As such, the UN Charter is an instrument of international law, and UN Member States are bound by it. The UN Charter codifies the major principles of international relations, from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations.
Since the UN’s founding in 1945, the mission and work of the Organization have been guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter, which has been amended three times in 1963, 1965, and 1973.
DV – Từng là Phó Trưởng Phái đoàn Đại diện Thường trực Việt Nam tại Liên Hợp Quốc (LHQ) từ cuối 2007 đến đầu 2012, trong đó có 2 năm 2008 & 2009 là Phó Đại diện Việt Nam tại Hội đồng Bảo an (HĐBA) LHQ, đến giờ Đại sứ Bùi Thế Giang vẫn giữ thói quen theo dõi lịch làm việc hàng ngày của HĐBA LHQ. Với nhiều người, những sự kiện Việt Nam tham gia chỉ là một dòng tin, nhưng Đại sứ Bùi Thế Giang phân tích với cái nhìn của người trong cuộc.
This study examines the maritime claims of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the SouthChina Sea. The PRC’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea are inconsistent with international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“Convention”).
The PRC asserts four categories of maritime claims* in the South China Sea:
• Sovereignty claims over maritime features. The PRC claims “sovereignty” over more than one hundred features in the South China Sea that are submerged below the sea surface at high tide and are beyond the lawful limits of any State’s territorial sea. Such claims areinconsistent with international law, under which such features are not subject to a lawfulsovereignty claim or capable of generating maritime zones such as a territorial sea.
• Straight baselines. The PRC has either drawn, or asserts the right to draw, “straight baselines” that enclose the islands, waters, and submerged features within vast areas of ocean space in the South China Sea. None of the four “island groups” claimed by the PRCin the South China Sea (“Dongsha Qundao,” “Xisha Qundao,” “Zhongsha Qundao,” and“Nansha Qundao”) meet the geographic criteria for using straight baselines under the Convention. Additionally, there is no separate body of customary international law that supports the PRC position that it may enclose entire island groups within straight baselines.
• Maritime zones. The PRC asserts claims to internal waters, a territorial sea, an exclusive economic zone, and a continental shelf that are based on treating each claimed South China Sea island group “as a whole.” This is not permitted by international law. The seaward extent of maritime zones must be measured from lawfully established baselines, which are normally the low-water line along the coast. Within its claimed maritime zones, the PRC also makes numerous jurisdictional claims that are inconsistent with international law.
• Historic rights. The PRC asserts that it has “historic rights” in the South China Sea. Thisclaim has no legal basis and is asserted by the PRC without specificity as to the nature orgeographic extent of the “historic rights” claimed.
The overall effect of these maritime claims is that the PRC unlawfully claims sovereignty or someform of exclusive jurisdiction over most of the South China Sea. These claims gravely underminethe rule of law in the oceans and numerous universally-recognized provisions of international lawreflected in the Convention. For this reason, the United States and numerous other States haverejected these claims in favor of the rules-based international maritime order within the SouthChina Sea and worldwide.
* Islands in the South China Sea over which the PRC claims sovereignty are also claimed by other States. This studyexamines only the maritime claims asserted by the PRC and does not examine the merits of sovereignty claims toislands in the South China Sea asserted by the PRC or other States. The United States takes no position as to whichcountry has sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea, which is not a matter governed by the law of the sea.
This series, issued by the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Department of State, aims to examine coastal States’ maritime claims and/or boundaries, and assess their consistency with international law. The studies represent the views of the United States Government only on the specific matters discussed therein and do not necessarily reflect an acceptance of the limits claimed.
Michael K. Orbach, Professor of Marine Affairs & Policy
Duke University Marine Laboratory, Beaufort, NC, USA
(Paper presented at “Good Governance for Sustainable Marine Development”,
Cascais, Portugal, June 3 to 5, 2013
BACKGROUND
Since the early 1600s, ocean policy has been defined by the concept of the “freedom of the seas”, crafted basically because no single maritime power was powerful enough to control ocean space.
Trong bài viết đăng trên Asia Times, nhóm tác giả Trần Hữu Duy Minh, Hoàng Thị Ngọc Anh, Nguyễn Hải Duyên* đã phản bác lại quan điểm Việt Nam là quốc gia vi phạm luật quốc tế ở Biển Đông, bên cạnh Trung Quốc.
Trung Quốc bồi đắp xây dựng trái phép các đảo nhân tạo thuộc quần đảo Trường Sa của Việt Nam. (Nguồn: Viettimes)
Trung Quốc không tôn trọng luật quốc tế
Trong bài báo được Asia Times đăng tải gần đây, học giả Mark Valencia khẳng định “Trung Quốc không phải là bên sai trái duy nhất ở Biển Đông, mà Việt Nam cũng vậy”. Cách nhìn này đang hiểu sai bản chất chính sách của Trung Quốc ở Biển Đông.
Mới đây, Mỹ và Australia đã tiến hành cuộc tham vấn thường niên theo cơ chế “2+2” lần thứ 31, trong đó nhấn mạnh tới những quan ngại về Biển Đông, cũng như đề cao việc thượng tôn luật pháp quốc tế, bao gồm Công ước Liên hợp quốc về Luật Biển năm 1982 (UNCLOS).
(Từ trái qua phải) Bộ trưởng Quốc phòng Australia Peter Dutton, Ngoại trưởng Australia Marise Payne, Ngoại trưởng Mỹ Anthony Blinken, Bộ trưởng Quốc phòng Mỹ Lloyd Austin trong cuộc gặp tại Thủ đô Washington, Mỹ trong tuần trước. Ảnh: REUTERS
These primers are for those who are not very familiar with UNCLOS and do not want to read the 202-page UNCLOS itself with all the crazy legalese that many law-of-the-sea lawyers are not even sure that they really mean 🙂
CVD 
