THE 2016 SOUTH CHINA SEA ARBITRAL AWARD: ISSUES OF LEGAL ESSENCE, QUALIFICATION, AND ITS ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF “CRISIS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW” NARRATIVES

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration issued a landmark arbitral award on the territorial dispute between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea (hereinafter – SCS), which almost completely rejected China’s territorial claims as inconsistent with existing principles and norms of international law. However, the decision was not unilaterally accepted by the academic community, which raised questions about both the correct legal qualification and a full-fledged “crisis of international law”. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the essence of the 2016 arbitral award, as well as its academic assessments in the context of the discourse on the “crisis of international law”. To achieve this purpose, the author uses general scientific methods (dialectical, logical, systemic), which apply the tools of formal logic to analyze the arbitral award on the dispute as a complex system, as well as specific scientific and special research methods (formal-legal method, method of legal hermeneutics), which allow a detailed examination of both the legal essence of the award and its legal assessments in the academic literature. Results: although the 2016 award failed to bring full legal certainty to the parties’ relations regarding the SCS, it is, nevertheless a valuable precedent for the general practice of international law of the sea and will serve as a further legal guideline in settling similar disputes. Assessments of the arbitral award as having no real legal significance and as an example of a crisis in the entire system of international law seem untenable and indicate nihilistic tendencies in the international legal consciousness.