International law is only as strong as the will of nations to enforce it
A decade after an international tribunal in The Hague affirmed the Philippines' maritime rights in the South China Sea, Filipino fishermen remain barred from Scarborough Shoal — waters their families have worked for generations. China, which rejected the 2016 arbitration award at the time, has since entrenched its presence through coast guard patrols, artificial islands, and the systematic exclusion of smaller vessels. The standoff is not merely a territorial dispute; it is a quiet referendum on whether international law holds meaning when a powerful state simply refuses to obey it.
- Filipino fishermen arriving at Scarborough Shoal are met by Chinese vessels that block, chase, and in some cases water-cannon them away from waters they have fished for generations.
- China has spent a decade not merely ignoring the 2016 tribunal ruling but actively dismantling its authority — building islands, stationing coast guard fleets, and asserting physical control that no legal document has been able to dislodge.
- The fishermen's boats are too small, too slow, and too exposed to contest a foreign state's naval presence, leaving them with an impossible choice between their livelihoods and their safety.
- Philippine officials mark the ruling's anniversary with diplomatic affirmations, but those words have not moved a single Chinese vessel — and the gap between what international law declares and what happens on the water keeps widening.
- The deeper crisis is structural: the rules-based international order has been exposed as contingent on the cooperation of the powerful, and no enforcement mechanism has emerged to close that gap.
Ten years ago, an international tribunal in The Hague handed the Philippines a landmark legal victory, ruling that China's sweeping claims over the South China Sea had no basis in international law and that Filipino fishermen held legitimate rights to waters near Scarborough Shoal — a crescent of reef sitting roughly 140 nautical miles from the Philippine coast. The ruling was binding. It was also supposed to mean something larger: that maritime disputes would be settled by law rather than by the size of a nation's fleet.
China rejected the ruling then, and it rejects it now. Over the decade since, Beijing has not simply looked away from the tribunal's decision — it has methodically reversed its spirit on the water. Coast guard vessels patrol with growing frequency. Artificial islands have been built and militarized. And the fishermen who depend on the shoal's rich grounds have found themselves facing a blockade enforced not by legal argument but by sheer physical presence. Their boats are turned back, sometimes by water cannons. Their catch is lost. Their families go without.
For the men in those small boats, the legal victory in The Hague is a distant abstraction. What is immediate is the Chinese vessel blocking their path, larger and faster and backed by state authority. Philippine officials continue to invoke the ruling in speeches and diplomatic forums, and those words carry weight in certain circles. But they have not changed the balance of power on the water.
What Scarborough Shoal has come to represent is something more troubling than a bilateral dispute: it is a test case for whether international law can constrain a major power that has decided, simply, not to comply. So far, the answer offered by the sea itself is not encouraging. The fishermen remain blocked, the shoal remains contested, and the question of enforcement — of what happens when a powerful state refuses to honor a binding ruling — remains, a decade on, unanswered.
Ten years have passed since an international tribunal in The Hague issued a ruling that should have settled things. The court found that the Philippines had legitimate claims to fishing grounds in the South China Sea, rejecting China's sweeping assertions over the waters. But on the water itself, nothing has changed. Filipino fishermen still cannot fish where their families have fished for generations. They arrive at Scarborough Shoal—a crescent of rocks and reef that sits roughly 140 nautical miles from the Philippine coast—and find Chinese vessels blocking their way. Some turn back. Others report being chased off by water cannons, their boats damaged, their catch lost.
The 2016 arbitration award was supposed to be different. It was binding under international law. It affirmed that the Philippines had exclusive economic rights to vast stretches of the South China Sea, and that China's "nine-dash line"—a vague historical claim drawn across nearly the entire sea—had no legal basis. The ruling was a vindication for Manila, a small nation standing against a much larger power. It was also meant to establish something larger: the principle that maritime disputes would be settled by law, not by force.
China rejected the ruling then. It rejects it now. Over the past decade, Beijing has not simply ignored the tribunal's decision—it has systematically undermined it. Chinese coast guard vessels patrol the disputed waters with increasing frequency. They have built artificial islands, installed military infrastructure, and established what amounts to a blockade around key fishing grounds. The effect is simple and devastating: Filipino fishermen cannot access the waters where they have always worked. Their boats are too small to challenge the Chinese presence. Their government, while vocal about the ruling, has limited ability to enforce it.
The situation at Scarborough Shoal has become emblematic of a larger failure. International law, it turns out, is only as strong as the will of nations to enforce it. The tribunal's award sits in archives and courtrooms, cited in speeches and legal briefs, but it has not translated into changed conditions on the water. China's rejection of the ruling has not isolated Beijing diplomatically or economically in any meaningful way. The rules-based international order that the award was supposed to strengthen has instead been exposed as fragile, dependent on the compliance of powerful states.
For the fishermen themselves, the legal abstractions matter far less than the immediate reality. They need to fish to feed their families and earn their living. The shoal is rich with resources—it has always been part of their maritime economy. Now it is simply closed to them, patrolled by a foreign power that does not recognize their right to be there. Some have tried to push through. They have been turned back, sometimes roughly. The Chinese vessels are larger, faster, and backed by state authority. There is no contest.
Philippine officials have marked the anniversary of the 2016 ruling with statements reaffirming their commitment to the rules-based order and their people-centered approach to governance. These words carry weight in diplomatic circles. But they ring hollow to men in small boats who cannot reach their fishing grounds. The tribunal's decision, for all its legal force, has not changed the balance of power in the South China Sea. If anything, the gap between what international law says and what actually happens on the water has only widened. The fishermen are still blocked. The shoal remains contested. And the question of how international rulings get enforced when a major power refuses to comply remains unanswered.
Citas Notables
Beijing's actions have systematically diluted the impact of the 2016 South China Sea award— Manila's legal representatives
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a court ruling from a decade ago still matter if nothing has actually changed?
Because it established a legal standard that was supposed to bind all parties. When China rejects it without consequence, it signals that international law is optional for powerful nations—and that matters for every smaller country trying to protect its interests.
But the fishermen can't eat a legal ruling. What's the practical impact on them?
Exactly. They've lost access to their traditional grounds. That's not abstract—it's their income, their food security, their way of life. The ruling was supposed to restore that access. Instead, it's become a document that proves the system doesn't work.
Has the Philippines tried to enforce it militarily or through other means?
Not militarily—they're vastly outmatched. They've protested diplomatically, cited the ruling repeatedly, but without enforcement mechanisms, those protests are just words. China has simply ignored them and continued building its presence.
So what changes this situation?
That's the hard question. Either the international community finds a way to make compliance costly for Beijing, or the status quo persists indefinitely. Right now, there's no mechanism forcing the issue. The fishermen will keep being turned away.