Groups of activists in Vietnam were detained Sunday while protesting China’s rejection [official statement] of the international ruling [text, PDF] regarding the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) [official website] issued the ruling [JURIST report] on Tuesday, finding that between the Philippines and China, the parties in the lawsuit, China has no legal claim [PCA press release, PDF] for large portions of the South China Sea. Vietnam had previously issued a statement [JURIST report] urging a “fair and objective” ruling in the matter, favoring a decision for the Philippines. China, on the other hand, has long disputed [JURIST report] the PCA’s jurisdiction over the matter. While not a party in the lawsuit, activists gathered in Vietnam’s capital [ABC report] due to their country’s competing claims to the South China Sea, and China’s rejection of the ruling only contributed to existing anti-Chinese sentiment in the country.

Territorial disputes over the South China Sea have been an ongoing source of tension [JURIST op-ed] between China and its neighboring countries. China claims nearly the entire 3.5 million square-kilometer [JURIST report] South China Sea, a region believed to be rich in oil and minerals. China has come into territorial conflict over the region in the past not only with the Philippines [JURIST op-ed], but also with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The Philippines and China were involved in a stand-off [Al Jazeera report] around the Scarborough Shoal, a small cluster of uninhabitable islands 220 km off the coast of the Philippines which, according to international maritime law, fall into the Philippines’ economic zone. The standoff was triggered when Chinese vessels blocked the Philippine navy from arresting Chinese fishermen for alleged illegal fishing activities within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones. The PCA in The Hague ruled in October that it has jurisdiction to hear the dispute [JURIST report] between the Philippines and China over parts of the South China Sea. For its part, China has refused to recognize PCA’s jurisdiction on the case, even going as far as calling it a “law-abusing tribunal.” However, the case was interpreting the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) [materials], to which China is a signatory.