Transcending Divisions and Harmonizing Interests: How the Arctic Council Experience Can Inform Regional Cooperation on Environmental Protection in the South China Sea

Abstract

1. The South China Sea Arbitration case has brought substantial attention to the sovereignty and maritime boundary disputes of the South China Sea. It has also exposed the environmental problems in the region and three important needs: cooperative governance of the marine ecosystem, ecological security, and sustainable development of the area by littoral States of the South China Sea. As the intractable and highly sensitive political disputes in the region continue, the need for environmental protection is growing more urgent; this issue’s largely non-controversial nature should provide a relatively low threshold for cooperative engagement. 2. Nevertheless, the relevant coastal States have not established a regime for marine environmental governance in the South China Sea, partly because environmental problems have been either overshadowed by or intertwined with complicated political disputes. Consequently, these issues were bound together and used as political tools in the ongoing sovereignty, delimitation or sovereign rights disputes. The Philippines has attempted to resolve environmental problems through arbitration or litigation. However, these problems are inextricable from ongoing political and legal problems, making it difficult to implement solutions to environmental problems.