Opinion | On both the South China Sea and drug war probe, Philippines should stick to right side of international law

Name: Philippines rebukes Beijing for 'dangerous manoeuvres' in South China Sea
Uploaded: 2023-07-25T00:15:10.000Z
Duration: 2 min 53 s
Description: Philippines rebukes Beijing for 'dangerous manoeuvres' in South China Sea

The Ferdinand Marcos Jnr administration wants to hold fast to the rule of law on the South China Sea but ignore probes into the country’s war on drugs

Cherry-picking compliance with international law damages the country’s reputation and undermines its standing with easy accusations of double standards

Reading Time:3 minutes

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A protester holds a sign with a photo of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr during a rally outside the Chinese consulate in Makati, Philippines, on July 12. The gathering marked the seventh anniversary of the issuance of the 2016 decision by an arbitration tribunal set up under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippines complained against China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Photo: AP

Mark T. Townsend

Published: 8:15am, 25 Jul 2023

There’s an idiom in the English language that says “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too” – in other words, you can’t have it both ways. But the Philippine government under President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr is in danger of trying to do just that. On one hand it seeks protection under international law, while on the other it is simultaneously abnegating those aspects it disagrees with.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) latest ruling dismissing the Philippines’ attempt to block the ICC’s probe into the country’s rampaging war on drugs comes at an inconvenient time for the Marcos administration as it seeks to garner international support against China’s increasingly assertive territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea.

Philippine senators are urging the government to bring the matter before the United Nations General Assembly in a bid to raise awareness, seemingly oblivious to the fact they could be accused of double standards. Still, the Philippines is a major player in the high-stakes territorial disputes in the South China Sea that are at the heart of simmering Sino-US tensions.

But by cherry-picking compliance with international law, Marcos is not only in danger of damaging the country’s reputation, he is hardly in a position to hold China to international obligations under the 2016 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea arbitral award which upheld Philippine sovereign rights in the South China Sea.

The glaring dichotomy also places the United States in something of a bind as it ratchets up assistance to Manila under recently expanded defence cooperation agreements.

The Biden administration’s support for the ICC as a mechanism to pursue Russian President Vladimir Putin suggests the long arm of international law might yet reach former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, the chief architect of the drug war. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, a move US President Joe Biden supported and said, “I think it’s justified.”

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Philippines rebukes Beijing for 'dangerous manoeuvres' in South China Sea