ABSTRACT
All chapters in this book contributed by lawyers and legal studies experts, political scientists, scholars in security/defense and maritime studies, former navy and military officers, and area study experts are revised and updated based on the comments and suggestions from the peer reviewers. Although the chapters have been revised and updated, it is impossible for them to accommodate every development in the South China Sea as the editors of the book set a deadline for the submission of all the contributing chapters. And since April 2012, when the government of the Philippines dispatched its warship to detain fishing vessels from China in the waters near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, tensions in the South China Sea have been on the rise again. A number of new developments that have potential impact on future dispute settlement or conflict management in the region were not covered in these chapters. It is the editors’ view that the value of this volume would be affected if these new developments were not addressed in the book. For that reason, we present to the reader this concluding chapter.
