The South China Sea Ruling: Who Cares?

The long-awaited decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on a dispute between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea was released on Tuesday. And the reaction on both sides was somewhat anticlimactic. The court nullified China's nine-dash line claim surrounding the sea as a legal basis for maritime entitlements under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China, along with Taiwan, which has a nearly identical sea claim, flatly declared that it would not respect the ruling. (Chinese state media went so far as to release a bizarre music video titled "South China Sea Ruling: Who Cares?") China's reaction is not surprising: It has spent the past several months saying that despite being a UNCLOS signatory, it would not abide by any decision. In light of both Chinese intransigence and the absence of any real enforcement mechanism on the part of the court, the...