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THE PHILIPPINES MAKES AN OFFICIAL SUBMISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS ON ENTITLEMENT TO AN EXTENDED CONTINENTAL SHELF IN THE WEST PHILIPPINE SEA and to invalidate China's territorial Claims
The Philippines has asked a United Nations body, to formally recognize the extent of its undersea continental seabed, in the West Philippine Sea. Where it would have the exclusive right to exploit resources, the Department of Foreign Affairs said, in a move that rejects China’s vast territorial claims to the region.
The Philippine government through the Philippine Mission to the UN in New York, submitted information to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. On the extent of its undersea shelf in the South China Sea, off western Palawan province, after more than a decade and a half of scientific research.
The submission is a declaration not only of the Philippines’ maritime entitlements under UN Convention on the Law of Seas but also of the country’s commitment to the responsible application of its processes. The Philippines underscored the significance of the submission in securing the Philippines’ sovereign rights and maritime jurisdictions in the West Philippine Sea, noting that the 2016 Award on the South China Sea Arbitration confirmed the Philippines’ maritime entitlements and rejected those that exceeded geographic and substantive limits under Unclos.
The undersea region where the Philippines seeks to formally establish its sovereign rights under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea or Unclos, covers the Spratlys, a chain of islands, islets, reefs and atolls that has been fiercely contested over the years by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Earlier this month, at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, the Philippines' President Ferdinand Marcos Jr enumerated the legal basis of the Philippines in determining its territorial boundary and sovereign entitlements.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, defines continental shelf as the submerged extension of a coastal state’s land territory, covering the seabed and subsoil beyond its territorial sea, up to the edge of its 370-kilometer or 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Under the 1982 U.N. convention under article 76, a coastal state could have exclusive rights to exploit resources in its continental shelf, a vast stretch of seabed that can extend up to 350 nautical miles or 648 kilometers, including the right to authorize and regulate any kind of drilling.
Article 77 grants coastal states sovereign rights over natural resources found on or beneath the continental shelf, including minerals and other nonliving matter, as well as organisms that are fixed to the seabed or subsoil.
The Philippines’ undersea continental shelf could potentially overlap with those of other coastal states in the South China Sea, including that of Vietnam. Philippine officials expressed readiness to hold talks to resolve such issues based on unclos.
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