Flanking tactics

VISUM WILFREDO G. REYES

- WILFREDO G. REYES

Don't look now, but if we're not careful, we could find ourselves legally outflanked over the West Philippine Sea.

In a move widely reported abroad on May 30 but which merited just minor, bottom-page treatment in the “World” pages of two local dailies, China Foreign Minister Wang Yi “and high-level representatives from 33 countries” signed a convention setting up an intergovernmental mediation body in Hong Kong. An article in the China Business Law Journal (CBLJ) said that the newly formed International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) that was initiated by Beijing “is modeled on the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, Netherlands.”

It is Beijing’s latest move in its bid to gradually change an international order long dominated by the West (wouldn’t you do the same if you were the only other political-military-economic superpower?), but one that could soon impact us directly.

IOMed’s website does not yet provide a complete list of signatories, although one article cited China and “31 other ‘like-minded’ countries” like Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, and Venezuela’, while the CBLJ piece cited Algeria, Cuba, and Indonesia. Besides these countries, others that in 2022 signed the joint statement on IOMed’s “future establishment” also included Belarus, Cambodia, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Lao PDR, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, and Zimbabwe.

The CBLJ article quoted Tao Chun-ming, former secretary-general of the respected Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC), as telling media that he expected the IOMed to “resolve disputes in Asia and Africa at the beginning of operations” by early next year.

HURTING