The Chinese Practice of Treaty Law - Examining the Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands from the Perspective of Treaty Law -

Abstract

The sovereignty dispute between China and Japan regarding the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands has captured global media attention and is the cause of some tension between the two countries. One of the major claims of both countries is whether the Islands have been ceded to Japan, and if so, have they been reverted to China.Cession and reversion were completed through a series of treaties as follows: the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), the Wartime Declarations (the 1940s)(the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration),the San Francisco Treaty (1951), the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (1952), the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (1960) , and the Okinawa Agreement (1971). The sovereignty dispute over the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands has been illustrated sufficiently from the point of view of history, jurisprudence and international law. However, it is not common to analyze it and then demonstrate the rationality of Chinese claims to the sovereignty of Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands from a treaty law perspective. Therefore, this paper explores the dispute by evaluating and analyzing the treaty law, such as the terms of treaties, the interpretation of treaties, the legal force of treaties, treaties and third states, the confliction and invalidity of treaties and so on. From the perspective of treaty law and in pursuit of the spirit of Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands have been China's territory since the ancient times and there is no legal basis for Japan to claim the sovereignty of Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands.