Legality of China’s Entitlements of Historic Rights beyond the UNCLOS in the South China Sea

In the Award of the South China Sea Arbitration, the Tribunal concluded that the Convention had superseded any historic rights in excess of the limits imposed by the Convention. Consequently, China’s claim of historic rights in the relevant part encompassed by the nine-dashed lines in the South China Sea exceeded the limits of China’s maritime entitlements under the Convention. But an analysis on the context and negotiation history of paragraph 8 of the preamble and issues related to historic rights in the Convention leads to an opposite conclusion. For the issues related to historic rights, the negotiation history of the Convention indicated that the Convention does not supersede any historic rights but left lacunae on related issues. According to the text and negotiation history of paragraph 8 of the Convention, historic rights were not superseded but were regulated by general international law.