Author: Jay Batongbacal

Jay L. Batongbacal is an associate professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law and director of the university’s Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea. He was a U.S.-ASEAN Fulbright Initiative Visiting Scholar in Washington, DC, in 2014-2015, assisted the Philippines in pursuing its claim to a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in the Benham Rise Region, and is listed as one of the UNESCO/IOC experts for special arbitration under UNCLOS Annex VIII.

Raging Waters in Benham Rise

By Jay Batongbacal | Mac 22, 2017 | Categories: Philippines

Philippine secretary of national defense Delfin Lorenzana stirred up a political maelstrom in Manila last week with the revelation that Chinese survey vessels were apparently conducting oceanographic research work off the east coast of Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines.

Scarborough Shoal: A Red Line?

By Jay Batongbacal | April 25, 2016 | Categories: Philippines

Transforming Scarborough into an artificial island-fortress could be the endgame in China’s rush to establish and consolidate control over the South China Sea.

Implications of the Philippines v. China Award on Jurisdiction

By Jay Batongbacal | November 5, 2015 | Categories: Arbitration, China, Philippines

The Philippines scored a procedural victory on October 29, successfully dodging the jurisdiction and admissibility objections posed by China’s position paper released last December regarding Manila’s case against Beijing’s South China Sea claims. In a 151-page decision, a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague affirmed the primacy of the United Nations […]