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Abstract The tribunal which handled the South China Sea Arbitration has decided that it has jurisdiction over submissions on historic rights and that China's historic rights claim goes against international laws including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). By examining the 2015 and 2016 awards, this essay questions and comments on the jurisdiction of the tribunal from three perspectives, and concludes that: the evidence referred to in the two awards are insufficient to attest a genuine dispute over historic rights between China and the Philippines; even if there is such a dispute, it should not be characterized as one concerning the interpretation and application of UNCLOS; furthermore, such a dispute concerning maritime delimitation is legally excluded from the scope of jurisdiction by China's written statement in 2006 under article 298 of UNCLOS.
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2017, Vol. 25 
