The UNCLOS

China claims that these dashes have ‘historic origins’ and that they predate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) that was established in 1982. The UNCLOS is an international agreement that defines the rights and responsibilities of the member na-tions with respect to their use of the world's oceans, establishes guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of the marine natural resources. It replaced the following four treaties:

1. Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, entry into force: 10 Septem-ber 1964

2. Convention on the Continental Shelf, entry into force: 10 June 1964

3. Convention on the High Seas, entry into force: 30 September 1962

4. Convention on Fishing and Conservation

The most significant issues covered were setting limits, navigation, archipelagic status and transit regimes, exclusive economic zones (EEZs), continental shelf jurisdiction, deep seabed mining, the exploitation regime, protection of the marine environment, scientific research, and settlement of disputes .The convention set the limit of various areas, measured from a carefully defined baseline.

It was opened for signature on 10 December 1982 and entered into force on 16 November 1994 and has been ratified by 168 states, which includes 167 states (164 member states of the United Nations plus the UN Observer state Palestine, as well as the Cook Islands, Niue and the European Union) .

UNCLOS is widely accredited and recognized as the ‘Constitution for the Oceans ’ by the states and plays a vital role in conducting inter-state relations in the oceans. At the same time, UNCLOS is also a treaty under International law and provides governing aspects of the ocean affairs. Article 38 of the Statue of the International Court of Justice provides four sources of the International law:

(a) international conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recog-nized by the contesting

In practice, all the UNCLOS related matters go to either ITLOS and the arbitral tribunal un-der Annex VII. ITLOS comprises of a permanent body of twenty one judges whereas the lat-ter is composed of five judges whose membership and rules of procedure are prescribed at length. No further consent is required from any nation that has ratified the Convention and has a relevant claim brought against it.

It is under Annexe VII of the Convention an arbitration tribunal, that the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) was established in July 2013. In January 2013, the Philippines formally initi-ated arbitration proceedings against China's territorial claim on the "Nine-Dash Line", which it said is ‘unlawful’ according to the UNCLOS. The line, first inscribed on a Chinese map in 1947, had “no legal basis” for maritime claims, deemed the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. In July 2016, the PCA tribunal judged that there was no evidence that China had ‘historically exercised exclusive control’ over the waters or resources within the Nine-Dash Line. The legalities of the claims for the Nine Dash Line also focus on the concept of terra nullius , which forms the basis of China’s territorial claims on the island features in the South China Sea. The same concept has been used to further its maritime claims to form the con-troversial Nine Dash Line,