ABSTRACT
The current iteration of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) hails from the third meeting of the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, which involved discussions that lasted nearly a decade, from 1973 until 1982. The modern story of the South China Sea disputes begins in the twentieth century. The history suggests that Chinese activities have been setting the tempo and nature of developments in the South China Sea. According to international treaties and customary law, all claims to sovereignty and rights at sea must ultimately start on land. The main protagonists claiming the islands shifted from being extra-regional actors, like Japan and France, to the littoral states of the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the interests of the governments of these littoral states began increasingly to be supported by their own developing abilities to project power into the sea and by a nascent codified international system.
