The South China Sea Arbitration and the Finality of ‘Final’ Awards

On 12 July 2016, the arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) issued its award in the South China Sea Arbitration between the Philippines and China. According to Article 11 of Annex VII, the award of the arbitral tribunal shall be ‘final’. The provision reiterates the general statement in Article 296(1) UNCLOS that any decision rendered by a court or tribunal having jurisdiction under part XV, section 2, of UNCLOS shall be ‘final’. In its award, the tribunal decided a number of general questions of the law of the sea, including the meaning of the term ‘rocks’ in and the relationship between UNCLOS and customary international law. This article examines what ‘finality’ of an arbitral award means with regard to decisions on such general questions of law or, in other words, in what way such decisions can be considered ‘final’.