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Showing posts from February 25, 2014

China must accept the provisions of UNCLOS

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China has again used its naval might to bully Filipino fishermen who were taking shelter due to bad weather 40 yards off the shore of the Bajo de Masinloc, which is inside  the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines. An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is a seazone prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.[1] It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles from its coast. In colloquial usage, the term may include the continental shelf. The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 n.m.limit. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Economic_Zone) The incident took place a few days when the Chinese Coast Guard deliberately bombarded two Filipino fishing vessels with a water cannon as a means to drive them away from the area. Although Philippine Foreign Affairs spokesm