Michaela del Callar
MANILA – The European Parliament has expressed its full support of the Philippine government’s decision to bring its territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea before a United Nations arbitration tribunal and called on Beijing to adhere to international law.
A resolution adopted March 14 by the European Union’s parliament approved a report which included its support of Manila’s move to clarify the country’s maritime entitlements under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.

UNCLOS is a 1982 accord by 163 countries that governs the use of offshore areas and sets territorial limits of coastal states. The Philippines and China are both signatories to the treaty.

The EU’s backing is one of the most important Manila’s legal action against China has received, although it has repeatedly emphasized it would not take sides in the territorial rifts in the resource-rich waters.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said the EU’s resolution is a “milestone in the efforts of our country to generate awareness and support for our arbitration efforts.”

“The recourse to arbitration is firmly rooted in the tradition of good global citizenship. We are strongly committed to seeing this arbitration through and there should be no doubts about our resolve to clarify our maritime entitlements in the West Philippine Sea peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law,” Del Rosario said.

The South China Sea—a strategic waterway where a bulk of the world’s trade pass—had been a source of conflict among competing claimants the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, China and Taiwan.

The vast waters—part of which is known in the Philippines as West Philippine Sea—is dotted with islands, reefs, cays, shoals and rock formations, is believed to be rich in natural gas and oil deposits. Analysts feared the competing claims could spark a military conflict in the region.

Part of the EU resolution underlined “the global importance of the South China Sea through which one third of the world’s trade passes through it.”

Tensions in the area spiked anew last year after the Philippines and Vietnam separately accused China of fresh incursions in areas they say fall within their sovereign waters.

The EU parliament said it is “alarmed at the escalating tension and therefore urgently appeals to all parties involved to refrain from unilateral political and military actions, to tone down statements and to settle their conflicting territorial claims in the South China Seas by means of international arbitration in accordance with international law, in particular the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, in order to ensure regional stability.”

The report, done by the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on European Union-China relations, likewise called on China to “commit itself to observing the UN Charter and international law in pursuit of its goals abroad.”

Similarly, a United States Senate resolution on the peaceful settlement of disputes in the South China Sea was likewise unanimously passed in 2012.

The European Parliament represents the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world with some 375 million eligible voters in 2009. — BM, GMA News