PH: A champion of international law

The Hague—The last time I was here, upon the invitation of the Dutch foreign ministry and en route to a lecture at Leiden University, it was too cold and too dark to enjoy the quaint city. But I was aware that it was in this seemingly unassuming corner of Europe where the foundations of a rules-based international order were established. The humble-sized city hosts the troika of international law, namely the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Not to mention, some of the finest legal minds on earth, including our Ambassador Eduardo Malaya, grace its streets.

Gladly, I managed to visit the good ambassador, whom I have known for the past decade, thanks to the intersection of our interest in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and the broader international legal landscape. A day earlier, my talk at The Hague on the Arbitral Tribunal Award anniversary and China’s bullying activities was unexpectedly canceled due to death threats against some of the folks attending a prior event in the same building. Somehow, words had gone around that I had attracted unnecessary attention, too, mainly thanks to my vocal stance on the South China Sea disputes. In another major surprise, the weather also went off-kilter: I ended up experiencing just as much rain, cold, and an overcast day in summertime Netherlands as I did in wintertime New Zealand last month.

Malaya and his lovely team warmly welcomed me to our gorgeously refurbished embassy at The Hague. Beautiful paintings. Tastefully gorgeous chandelier. A grand piano. Two busts of Rizal, one in the garden and another in the arrival hall. All thanks to private donations by patriots as well as the impeccable leadership of our ambassador to the Netherlands, who made sure that the Philippines receives its due recognition as one of the pillars of modern international law.

As a full-fledged legal scholar and the current president of the Administrative Council of PCA, Malaya was more than happy to remind me of the countless Filipino greats in the field, notably ICJ Judge Cesar Bengzon, who now has a newly inaugurated hall named after him in our gorgeously dignified embassy at The Hague; Florentino Feliciano, who served as the chair of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization; and Raul Pangalangan, who served as a judge at the ICC.

From our ilustrados in the late 19th century, notably Pedro Paterno and Apolinario Mabini, to our Commonwealth-era leaders, who advocated for colonial people in the League of Nations, the Filipino was the voice of the colonial peoples in the name of a rules-based international order. In the post-war era, our legendary diplomats such as Carlos Romulo and Salvador Lopez would build on this admirable legacy by, inter alia, becoming a major force in the United Nations, including the development of a universal charter of human rights.

Meanwhile, the Philippines also played a key role in the development of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by deftly fostering solidarity and strategically negotiating a common stance with fellow post-colonial archipelagic nations in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Meanwhile, the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes provided the normative and legal foundations for a new global legal architecture, which protected the interests of weaker and nonaligned post-colonial nations.

Against this illustrious backdrop, it was almost inevitable for us to invoke international law against China’s aggression in the WPS, namely our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) within the South China Sea basin. What we lacked in military capacity, we more than compensated for in legal prowess.

For the past century, the greatest Filipino minds and patriots have been champions of international law, precisely because the rule of law is our best antidote to all permutations of imperialism and superpower bullying. Thanks to our legal warfare, multiple regional states, including Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, can invoke our arbitral tribunal award to resist China’s expansionism in their respective EEZs. Crucially, global powers can also invoke our arbitral tribunal ruling to question China’s baseless and excessive claims across the South China Sea. We may be confronting turbulent waters these days, but the arc of history bends toward international justice.

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