Vietnam's evolving claims

Abstract

Vietnam is one of the claimants in the South China Sea disputes. Its claims for sovereignty of islands and maritime regions of the sea overlap either wholly or partly with those of Brunei, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines. This chapter examines the evolution of the claims of unified Vietnam to maritime territories in the South China Sea since 1975, and compares them with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Vietnamese legal experts held that historic waters must meet three conditions, namely deeply indented geographical configuration, economic, security and defense significance, and prolonged usage of the waters by the coastal states. Though Vietnam did not clarify the limits of its claimed maritime territory, these positions suggested that Vietnam aimed to use international law to establish maximum exclusive or partial jurisdiction over a vast span of maritime area beyond its coast.