Tribunal ruling a game changer

Assoc Prof Robert Beckman from the NUS Faculty of Law and Head of the Ocean Law and Policy Programme at the Centre for International Law at NUS, noted that the tribunal ruling in the Philippines versus China arbitration on the South China Sea does not say whose territorial claims are superior, whether China's nine-dash line claim is illegal per se, or that China's construction of artificial islands is in principle unlawful. He opined that what the tribunal did not rule on is as significant as what it did.

• The Straits Times, 14 July 2016, Opinion, pA26