South China Sea On 22 January 2013, the Philippines activated the dispute settlement procedures of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS Convention) against the People's Republic of China through a notification and a statement of claim. The Philippines sought the creation of an Annex VII Arbitral Tribunal to resolve a number of issues; in particular, the relationship between the China's "nine-dashed line" in the South China Sea and the provisions on maritime jurisdiction in the LOS Convention and the legal status of certain insular features in the region as either rocks, not capable of generating maritime zones beyond the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, or islands entitled to the full range of zones, including a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
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