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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte went on the offensive over the South China Sea on Wednesday, in his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, highlighting his country’s legal victory at The Hague in its long-standing maritime dispute with China. .
In a video address recorded in Manila, Duterte said that the Philippines has rights to parts of the South China Sea that the Hague ruling declared to be within the country’s exclusive economic zone.
“The award is now part of international law, beyond commitment and beyond the reach of governments in approval to dilute, diminish or abandon it,” Duterte said.
“We firmly reject attempts to undermine it.”
In his more than four years in office, it was the first time that Duterte addressed the UN body, which this year turns 75.
His statement on the South China Sea dispute is considered the strongest yet, given his earlier pronouncements downplaying the issue in exchange for Manila’s closer geopolitical and economic ties with Beijing.
Duterte is under mounting pressure at home to challenge China, after putting the standoff aside for years, with tensions rising after a Chinese fishing trawler struck and sank a Filipino vessel in disputed waters in 2019, and later. of China’s continued expansion of artificial islands within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Over the past decade, China has built military installations on several disputed reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea to assert its right to nearly the entire sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Indonesia also claim the waters.
Beijing bases its claims on the so-called nine-dash line, a vague delineation of maps dating from the 1940s, which was outlawed in a 2016 ruling in The Hague. The court determined that the Philippines has exclusive rights to resources within 370.4 km (200 nautical miles) of its coastline.
In recent months, tensions have escalated as various world powers, including the United States and India, have sent warships and other naval vessels to patrol the disputed seas in an effort to enforce the Hague ruling and affirm the freedom of navigation.
In his speech Wednesday, Duterte said he salutes “the growing number of states that have come out in support of the award and what it represents: the triumph of reason over recklessness, of law over disorder, of friendship over ambition”.
“This – as it should [be]”He said,” is the majesty of the law. “
Duterte also used the speech to address the condemnation of the “war on drugs” that began shortly after taking office. He accused “interest groups” of trying to “weaponize” human rights issues to criticize the campaign in which thousands of people have died.
Human rights groups have been lobbying the UN for a full investigation into the war on drugs, accusing Duterte of committing crimes against humanity.
“They are trying to discredit the functioning of the institutions and mechanisms of a democratic country and a government elected by the people that in its last two years still enjoys the same widespread approval and support,” he said.
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