FSI Insights
Publication of the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) that features in-depth analyses of global and regional strategic issues that impact the Philippines and provides inputs for Philippine foreign policy.
Major Powers and (Non)Compliance to International Rulings: Considerations for the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea
by: Jacqueline P. Buenaventura
FSI Insights, May 2024
International law is lauded for establishing a set of rules and principles intended to create an equal playing field for all states. From a geopolitical perspective, it serves as “one of the tools available to weaker states in their battles with more powerful states.” Yet, reality paints a different picture. Despite the notion that international law promotes equality among states, the persisting trend is that major powers exercise partial compliance, if not outright defiance of international rules, norms, and principles.
by: Edcel John A. Ibarra
FSI Insights, April 2022
Conventional wisdom suggests that advancing an alliance with a third-party or external state amid an international conflict is not conducive to resolving that conflict. Doing so would only encourage counter-alliances and arms buildups between the conflicting states, increasing the likelihood of war. Therefore, the wisdom holds that conflicting states should avoid involving third-party allies, and conversely, third-party allies should refrain from interfering in their partners’ conflicts.
by: Edcel John A. Ibarra
FSI Insights, Volume 7, Number 2, November 2021
In August 2017, Chinese coast guard and navy ships were seen close by Sandy Cay, a sandbar neighboring Philippine-occupied Thitu (Pag-asa) Island in the South China Sea. Then Senior Associate Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court, Antonio Carpio, warned that Sandy Cay was “being seized (to put it mildly), or being invaded (to put it frankly), by China.” President Rodrigo Duterte and then Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alan Peter Cayetano denied the allegation.
by: Darlene V. Estrada and Edcel John A. Ibarra
FSI Insights, Volume 7, Number 1, March 2021
In a show of international friendship, President Rodrigo Duterte and President Xi Jinping elevated Philippines-China ties from the 2005 Strategic and Cooperative Relationship for Peace and Development (SCRPD) to a relationship of Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation (CSC) in a 2018 joint statement. This upgraded arrangement is an outcome of President Duterte’s recalibrated approach toward China that has since resulted in a positive turn in the Philippines-China relationship.
by: Edcel John A. Ibarra
FSI Insights, Volume 4, Number 2, July 2017
On 11 July 2016, a day before a UN Convention on the Law of the Sea arbitral tribunal delivered the final award of Philippines v. China, Graham Allison argued in The Diplomat that China will keep its word and reject the tribunal ruling, citing how the other permanent members of the UN Security Council had also rejected the rulings in Nicaragua v. US, Mauritius v. UK, and Netherlands v. Russia. He claimed that in ignoring the South China Sea arbitration award, China “will be doing just what the other great powers have repeatedly done for decades.” Allison, however, gave an incomplete account of great-power compliance and excluded China’s own record in the analysis.
by: Mary Fides A. Quintos
FSI Insights, Volume 2, Number 2, March 2015
On 15 May 2014, the Philippines released a series of photographs on China’s land reclamation activities at Johnson South Reef showing the gradual construction of an artificial island. A few months later, similar activities undertaken by China at Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef, Cuarteron Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef, which are all part of the disputed Spratly Islands, circulated in various local and international news agencies. China’s construction of artificial islands in the Spratlys received criticisms particularly from the Philippines, Vietnam, and the United States, creating tensions in the region which, in turn, contributed to the increasing magnitude of challenges that impact on regional security.