Part One
Remarks by Ambassador Albert F. del Rosario, former secretary of Foreign
Affairs, at the Conferment of Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humanities by the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) on September 25, 2018, at the Rev. Henry Lee Irwin Theater, Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City.
First of all, I would like to proffer my profound thanks to the Ateneo for sharing its tradition of excellence with us on this incredible day. It is a great honor to receive this conferment from the Ateneo and I am deeply humbled by it.
With your kind indulgence, I have chosen to speak on the “Rule of Law” which I believe to be a timely and important subject. For many of us, this concept of the rule of law applies only in a domestic concept.
That is to say, it governs the relationships within a Nation State, between its citizens and various juridical entities, within the government, and between the government and the people.
Indeed, all countries should be governed by the rule of law. Democracies, as the saying goes, are governments of law and not of men.
However, what we must never forget is that the rule of law must also govern relations among states and other international entities.
After suffering two world wars, the international community had strived to establish international law as the bedrock foundation for the lawful governance of global affairs.
The United Nations is the centerpiece of these efforts to outlaw aggression between states and to promote more peaceful relations. Other international mechanisms, including the Bretton Woods system and the multilateral trading system anchored on the World Trade Organization, similarly aimed to have more order, stability and predictability in international economic relations.
Now, however, this international order seems beset by challenges on all sides. Alienated, disaffected and angry elements appear intent on tearing down much of what the international community has built in the post-World War II era.
We face threats from embittered, anti-immigrant and right wing populists, to economic super-nationalists, to the neo-authoritarians pushing against liberal democracy at home and asserting their power overseas, to religious extremists of so many kinds.
Here, in our own region, we have seen an example of such unilateralist action right on our very doorstep. In the South China Sea, despite our best efforts to find a peaceful and lasting resolution to our disputes that would account for the legitimate interests of all parties, we find China still obstinately acting in a contrary manner.
As a result, we are now in a new era of uncertainty. There is now disarray in the ranks of governments. We are casting around for ways to respond in a meaningful fashion to preserve the established order, while answering the frustration and fury of many electorates.
To be fair, much of the disenchantment arises from the failures of the current systems. Despite its many achievements, the United Nations has seemed increasingly powerless against so many instances of conflict. The UN did help in preventing the outbreak of general war since 1945 alongside the nuclear superpower balance. But there has been an explosion of substate conflict involving nonstate actors and as well terrible humanitarian catastrophes.
Economic globalization did reduce the number of absolute poor in the world, lifting up many developing nations, enabling them to participate and contribute at unprecedented levels in the global economy. But that progress has been uneven and too many have been left behind. Furthermore, repeated financial meltdowns, greater than the Great Depression of the 1930s, also a product of globalization, has shaken the core of the global economy.
The IT revolution has taken down barriers, facilitated communication, boosted creativity and productivity and brought people together more closely than ever before. But, paradoxically, the IT revolution has also fuelled extremism and hate.
More ominously, it has permitted cybercriminality, which respects neither law nor national borders, to spread like an uncontrollable cancer.
What does all this mean for the Philippines? How do we manage in an era of uncertainty that is perhaps deeper and darker than at any time in a generation? We seem to be drifting, like so many other nations, into a nebulous unknown.
The first, I believe, is to realize that the Philippines has a fundamental and enduring stake in the international system.
We have always been an open and welcoming country. Over the past 20 years, we have also made profound decisions to become ever more engaged with the world in all dimensions. Politically, economically, technologically and in terms of people-to-people relations, the Philippines has not been wanting in efforts to reach out and work with other countries for the common good.
The second, and more important, is that the Philippines is not insignificant on the world stage.
As a member of the community of nations, we have been active in global efforts to create rules for international order that would save us from a dog-eat-dog world of competing powers and naked interests. The Philippines was a charter member of the UN Charter. We worked for greater respect for humanity as a drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We participated actively in the decades-long effort that produced the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
The Philippines took part in United Nations peacekeeping, from Korea to the Golan Heights. We have, within our means, joined mercy and humanitarian missions, including the Red Cross.
We helped forge international rules and norms for global disarmament and arms control, for trade and development, for health, for climate change and for migration, among others.
We are one of the five founding members of the Asean and an advocate of its multiplicity of dialogue mechanisms. We helped create Apec, the East Asian Summit and the Asean Regional Forum.
Throughout this time, through successive administrations, the explicit or implicit operating assumption of the Philippines was that we were helping to build a more peaceful and prosperous world. The lodestone for all this effort, accomplished in various diplomatic forms, has been an abiding faith in the centrality of the rule of law.
As a developing country, albeit now a fast-growing one, which seeks both security and progress through engagement with the world, it is crucial for the Philippines to maintain solidarity with other countries and all stakeholders who share a similar faith. Whether it is to solidify peace and stability through Unclos in the South China Sea, or to save the rules-based multi lateral trading system in the World Trade Organization, or to protect our planet Earth through the implementation of the Paris Accords, or to avoid a nuclear catastrophe with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, we must stand steadfast with responsible nations for the rule of law.
In this regard, may I recall that the Philippines has already made a tremendous contribution to the advancement of the Rule of Law.
By initiating and winning its South China Sea arbitral case against China on July 12, 2016, we have shown the world that our country sought to resolve a serious dispute state-to-state in its regional neighborhood solely through legal, peaceful and transparent means.
The arbitral award safeguarded vital Philippine sovereign interests in the South China Sea against unjust encroachments by Beijing.
By ruling against the legality of the so-called nine-dash line claim, the Arbitral Tribunal demonstrated that Beijing had not acted in accordance with international law on areas affecting the maritime claims of the Philippines.
Allow me to quote Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio on this crucial point:
“Among coastal states in the South China Sea, the most important aspect of the award is the ruling that China’s so-called historic nine-dash line cannot serve as legal basis to claim any part of the waters or resources of the South China Sea. China, like all the other coastal states in the South China Sea, can only claim maritime zones not exceeding 350 NM [nautical miles]from its coastline.
“The award in effect affirmed the existence of high seas in the South China, comprising about 25 percent of the waters of the South China Sea, and all around these high seas are the EEZs [exclusive economic zones] of the adjacent coastal states. In the EEZs, all the fish, oil, gas and other mineral resources can be exploited solely, and exclusively, only by the adjacent coastal state.”
Let me also recall that the decision to go to court, so to speak, was not done rashly in haste. The Philippines tried in vain to engage with China in discussions to resolve our differences. And since the ruling, China has continued its unilateralist actions leading to an increased militarization of the South China Sea through more construction on its artificial islands and naval upgrades.
It is truly unfortunate that Beijing chose not to work with us in finding an enduring legal way out of the disputes. If Beijing had taken part in the arbitration, the legal parameters of our common concerns would have been established for the eventual longer-term resolution of our disputes through further negotiation.
Let me add further that such negotiations, after the tribunal outcome, would have placed the Philippines on a stronger footing vis-a-vis the rising power of China.
In any case, Beijing’s rejection of the arbitral ruling is considered immaterial. The ruling is now an integral part of international law. Even the presidential spokesman has recognized this.
To be continued