Ahead of verdict, China targets SCS tribunal judges

Bracing for an adverse verdict by an international tribunal on the South China Sea dispute to be delivered on Tuesday, China has targeted the judges of the tribunal and the Japanese jurist who appointed them saying he was a “rightist” and “unfriendly to China”.

While Chinese officials and media have questioned the neutrality of judges handling the South China Sea (SCS) case initiated by the Philippines, vice foreign minister Liu Zhenmin questioned the “procedural justice” of the appointment and the operation of the tribunal.

China has directed its ire at Japanese jurist Shunji Yanai branding him as a “rightist” and “unfriendly to China”. Ahead of the verdict, Chinese officials have been saying that the judgement would go against China and the country would not accept it.

In an article in the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece magazine Qiushi, Mr Liu also cast doubt on the make-up of the tribunal, saying none of the five judges — one African and four Europeans — had knowledge of the history and international order of ancient East Asia, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The judges, Mr Yanai, appointed included one who had ruled against a party holding a position similar to China in a previous case, Mr Liu said.

“Leaving aside the obvious violation of procedural justice, we can hardly make a better explanation of Judge Yanai’s motivation and purpose other than that he did it on purpose,” Mr Liu said.

The tribunal appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration is composed of Judge Thomas A. Mensah of Ghana, Judge Jean-Pierre Cot of France, Judge Stanislaw Pawlak of Poland, Professor Alfred H.A. Soons of the Netherlands, and Judge Rüdiger Wolfrum of Germany.

Mr Mensah serves as president of the tribunal. The judges panel was picked up by Mr Yanai in 2014 as he was then-president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). He was required to select four of the five judges on the arbitration tribunal formed to hear the case.

While each side has the right to select one judge and must agree upon three others, China had ceded its rights by declining to participate in the arbitration.

As a result, UNCLOS rules dictated that Mr Yanai, who himself does not sit on the SCS tribunal, choose judges on behalf of Manila and Beijing. The state-run media alleged that Mr Yanai’s role in selecting a panel highlighted “bias” in the arbitration process.

The reports claimed Tokyo’s own maritime disputes with Beijing in the East China Sea over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, known as Diaoyu in China, made a Japanese national unfit to play such a key a role in the case.