Hague ruling shows how seas, oceans are global commons

TO no one's surprise, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has put paid to any assertion that Beijing's claims in the South China Sea had a legal, or for that matter historical, basis. The tribunal has accepted 14 of the 15 claims put forward by the Philippines in a unanimous award.

Most importantly, on Beijing's infamous nine-dash line on its maps, the coordinates of which China has never revealed, the tribunal has ruled that it has no validity whatsoever under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . The Hague tribunal has found that China never had exclusive use of the disputed region. This is a hugely important ruling to every trading nation; the se…