ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the relationship between the U-shaped line and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. One of the assertions in the Philippine Statement of Claim in its case against China is that 'China's maritime claims in the South China Sea based on its so-called nine dashed line' are contrary to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and invalid'. China has made no recent public comments on the U-shaped line and has not responded directly to the Philippine assertion of the relationship between the LOS Convention and the U-shaped line. The chapter provides an understanding of the legal offshore regimes within and beyond the LOS Convention with a focuses on historic waters and historic rights since these terms, rightly or wrongly, have been associated with China's U-shaped line. Clive R. Symmons comments that a possible distinction also exists in those historic waters 'must necessarily be adjacent to the Claimant State'.
