The Management of the Spratly Islands Conflict: Success or Failure?

Abstract

The Spratly Islands conflict in the South China Sea originally started in the 1930s, but was first manifestly erupted in 1969. They are entirety and partially claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, and Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei respectively. Spratly Islands is the source of conflict because of its oil abundance and other natural resources, and strategic location. Though some regional efforts have been implemented to resolve the conflict such as the preventive diplomacy and track two diplomacy employed by Indonesia, the track one diplomacy of ASEAN Regional Forum and so on, the conflict is still going on as all the claimants, particularly China, are realist in resolving the conflict. Since each claimant continues to do so, the interest/rights/power model or dispute resolution stairway is suggested. However, in order to rightly apply this model into Spratlys conflict, only two steps of stairway, interest-based and rights-based solutions, are taken into account. To put it in other word, two appropriate solutions, the interest-based solution or institutional approach - join development project - by employing constructivist theory, and achieving through negotiation among the parties themselves, and the rights-based solution or alternative dispute resolution approach - arbitration - conducted by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) through UNCLOS, are proposed for the Spratlys conflict. Concerning the joint development project, it perhaps necessary to first negotiates a formal treaty that freezes the existing claims of all the disputants. The proposed treaty should also contain a clause that will enable Taiwan to unilaterally affirm that it supports and will abide by it. If all the claimants strictly adhere to the principles of the 2002-declaration and the to-be-created treaty, and the aforementioned are viable, further clashes can be prevented, and a way out for this protracted dispute can be merely achieved. Regarding the arbitration of the ICJ, the verdict of the ICJ is a zero-sum outcome. This solution might be viable if all the claimants could mutually agree with the verdict of the ICJ.