A Decade After The Hague, the EU Renews Its Call for a Code of Conduct That's Yet to Materialize
This comes after Chinese academics concluded that the northernmost province of Batanes belongs to China through Taiwan.
by JV Ordoñez
Published on Jul 14, 2026
It's hard to believe that an entire decade has passed since the United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration voided China's sweeping claim over the highly disputed South China Sea.
The European Union has once again raised urgency for the region to come up with a code of conduct in the waterway to deter any more volatile situations from happening as countries try to sort out their overlapping claims.
"The EU reaffirms its unwavering commitment to UNCLOS, which reflects and codifies customary international law and sets out the universal and unified legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out," the regional bloc said in a statement, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law on the Sea (UNCLOS).
The EU underlines the critical importance of upholding the freedoms, rights, and duties set out in UNCLOS, in particular the freedom of navigation and overflight, including the right of transit passage, as essential to regional stability, global security, and the maintenance of safe, free, and open sea routes.
It added that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China must fast-track effective and substantive efforts to agree on a code of conduct to ensure peace in the region.
The EU also renewed its call for dialogue among nations and asserted that it was "deeply concerned" over worsening tensions and dangerous skirmishes in the waterway as it "firmly opposes any unilateral actions that threaten to undermine regional stability and the international order based on international law and the rule of law..."
This comes after a joint declaration from the Philippines and 13 partner countries (Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia, the UK, and the US) reaffirming the final and binding quality of the ruling.
This also comes at the heels of the uproar caused by a June 30 symposium at Jinan university in Guangzhou, where scholars from Nanjing University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and other institutions claimed the Batan Islands (the largest islands in Batanes), are a
natural geographical extension" of Taiwan and therefore fall under Chinese sovereignty.
Geopolitical, historical, and political pundits and the Philippine government have rejected the claim, saying it is baseless and "intellectually dishonest."
Beijing and Manila have been at odds over persistent sea clashes and air disputes over contested features in the resource-rich waterway that sees about $3 trillion in trade passing through it every year. Manila has failed to enforce its 2016 ruling victory before the United Nations' Permanent Court of Arbitration, which ruled China's historical claims based on a 1940s map covering a "nine-dash line" and even a newer "ten-dash line" territory had no legal basis under international law.
President Marcos has been trying to persuade his neighbors like Malaysia and Vietnam to hold talks on a Code of Conduct for behavior in the South China Sea while pursuing a broader regional pact with Beijing
Besides the two countries, other nations such as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam have overlapping claims to parts of the South China Sea.
Esquire PH's resident music scribe, wristwatch disciple, and essayist fluent in niche internet subcultures and Philippine politics.