Tag: Justice Antonio Carpio

The Philippine claim on the islands in the South China Sea , now being called West Philippine Sea by Philippine authorities, could have been stronger had past administrations been more decisive about asserting our claims in the area that is being claimed wholly by China and Taiwan and partially by, aside from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei.

In a speech of Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio at the 50th anniversary celebration of Ateneo de Davao University last Oct. 29 on “The Rule of Law as the Great Equalizer’, he mentioned two instances when the Philippines could have done something but did not to strengthen the Philippine claim over the area that spans hundreds of thousands square kilometers including 53 islets.

Justice Carpio’s speech in full:

The Rule of Law as the Great Equalizer by Justice Carpio

The first time was right after the Philippines became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982 and the other one was before China opted out in 2006 from the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism of UNCLOS.