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In Unresolved Border, Land and Maritime Disputes in Southeast Asia the authors shed light on unresolved and lingering territorial disputes in Southeast Asia and their reflection in current inter-state relations in the region, applying a wider regional and comparative perspective.

This book discusses the South China Sea dispute from a Chinese perspective with regards to history, law, international politics, the economy, diplomacy and military affairs.Not only does it detail China's official position on the sovereignty and maritime disputes in the South China Sea, but also provides analyses of the related factors.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted its fifth annual South China Sea conference in July 2015. This compilation features papers from some of the top experts in the United States and Asia, who presented during the day's panels.

Over the last few decades there has been growing recognition of the importance of a peaceful and stable South China Sea for Indo-Pacific security and development, a recognition that has been underlain, paradoxically, by the increasingly precarious situation in this body of water that straddles critical shipping lanes from the Indian to the Pacific.

Using a conflict transformation framework, this article demonstrates that positive transformations have taken place in the South China Sea between 1991 and 2007. Even though these transformations have been weakened in recent years, particularly regarding the actor aspect, it is concluded that a major armed conflict is still highly unlikely.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) offers a legal framework for the sustainable development of the oceans and their natural resources. However, recently there have been calls to amend the Convention due to some ambiguous provisions which are unable to address a variety of contemporary maritime issues. This book evaluates the applicability and effectiveness of UNCLOS as a settlement mechanism for addressing ocean disputes. The book's central focus is on the South China Sea (SCS) dispute, one of the most complex and challenging ocean-related conflicts in the world. The book examines the ways in which an emphasis on sovereignty, threats to maritime security and overlapping maritime claims caused by the newly established maritime regimes authorized by UNCLOS are all contributing factors to the SCS dispute. The book considers the internal coherence of the Law of the Sea Convention regime and its dispute settlement procedures. It looks at participation in the UNCLOS negotiations, maritime legislation, and the dispute settlement practice of relevant States party to the SCS dispute. The author goes on to explore the relationship between UNCLOS and the regimes and institutions in the SCS, particularly in regard to issues of maritime security, marine environment protection, joint development of oil and gas and general political interaction. The author proposes practical mechanisms to resolve the dispute whilst also offering a final judgement on the effectiveness of UNCLOS for settling disputes. UNCLOS and Ocean Dispute Settlement will be of particular interest to academics, students and policy makers of international, shipping and maritime law as well as being of interest to academics and students in the field of international relations.

China's maritime periphery or ‘‘near seas’’—the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea—are waters through which a great deal of vital commerce flows, as China, Japan, Korea, and numerous Southeast Asian countries are all major trading nations that import the energy and raw materials that sustain their thriving economies. Since 2009 the East and South China Seas have become increasingly fraught with tension. This has generally been attributed to rising Chinese assertiveness, but not because China has started making a lot of assertions it never made before. As the authors assembled here point out in replete detail, China’s explicit claims to the Diaoyu/Senkaku islets in the East China Sea date back at least to 1971, while it can trace its claim in the South China Sea back to the publication of the famous ‘‘nine-dashed line’’ map by the Nationalists in 1947 (at the time it contained eleven segmented lines; the victorious Communists subsequently dropped two). What has changed since 2009 is China’s more rigorous enforcement of existing claims. This too is brought out in the articles collected below: its actors have seized islands well within the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of neighboring Southeast Asian nations, detained fishing boats and confiscated their catch, cut the cables of ships engaged in oil exploration, harassed American surveillance vessels, and most recently undertaken ‘‘reclamation’’ of subsurface islets in order to construct airstrips and harbors. 

ASEAN has an abiding interest in peace and stability in this region and in freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea. Much of ASEAN's commerce, including its members' traded food and energy resources, passes through or over the South China Sea. The stakes for ASEAN and its members in the South China Sea are very high. This book is the product of a conference on 'Entering Uncharted Waters? ASEAN and the South China Sea Dispute', initiated to remind all claimants to bring their claims as close as possible to the provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. After all, ASEAN has sought to promote the rule of law in the region. The conference and this book were inspired by the following objectives: peace, stability, freedom of navigation and overflight, confidence building, cooperation, and the rule of law.

In the South China Sea dispute, some Track-2 settings, along with Track-1 efforts by ASEAN and China, have facilitated some conflict “management.” But they have not brought about conflict “resolution” of the basic sovereignty and control issues. Conflict “irresolution” has ensued instead. Short-term balancing may perhaps generate long-term socialization convergence.