Force of law or law of force? The ball is in China's court

THE Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling on the South China Sea marks a watershed in Asian maritime history. The decision by the Hague-based international tribunal could ignite tensions leading to war if Beijing responds by behaving as if international law does not matter. It is in China's own interests to act otherwise, as a mature rising power which has a stake in the peaceful evolution of the Asian security order.

On Tuesday, the tribunal concluded that China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" to islands in the South China Sea and that it has violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines, which had lodged a suit against it in 2013. The tribunal repudiated China's claim to most of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory on the basis of Chinese maps dating back to the 1940s that carry the ubiquitous "nine-dash line".

The Hague ruling is historic because it opposes privileging the past over advances in law. If that were not to be the case, many countries would employ the easy expedient of historical precedent, which often is difficult to counteract empirically, to establish claims in the present. That would be a recipe for disaster.