An International Commission of Inquiry for the South China Sea?

The multilateral territorial dispute over the South China Sea has intensified in recent years. In response, some observers endorse the apparent turn to lawfare on display in the ongoing Philippines v. China arbitration, conducted under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Yet the limited subject matter of this arbitration means that it can contribute only modestly to any ultimate resolution between claimants. Indeed, the Chinese side has argued against tribunal jurisdiction precisely on the basis of the primacy of questions over territorial sovereignty--which are barred from UNCLOS proceedings--to the determination of all other legal issues being contested between the parties. This Article assesses the merits of these and other major objections to the UNCLOS arbitration and proposes a supplemental legal mechanism: an international Commission of Inquiry (COI) by involved states, addressing French, Japanese, and other extra-regional states\u27 now inactive claims regarding the sovereign status of the region\u27s various island territories through the end of World War II hostilities in 1945. Such a COI would acknowledge, as the UNCLOS arbitration does not, the centrality of the legal issue of territorial sovereignty to the dispute. Yet by limiting its findings to the islands\u27 contested status during the period of European and Japanese colonialism in Asia, rather than determining current ownership, a COI could nonetheless avoid exacerbating tensions or alienating claimants