Singapore, Jan. 24 -- The reports on Jan 17 by Associate Editor Ravi Velloor (Does the PLA tail wag the China dog?) and Mr Robert Beckman (Why Indonesia has stake in fight to defend Unclos) on the South China Sea (SCS) dispute between Indonesia and China, among other things, touched on the concepts of "claimant state" and "party to the dispute".
While the "claimant states" in the SCS are generally known, who are the other "parties to the dispute"? The answer is in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (Unclos).
Unclos stipulates that all coastal states can claim up to 12 nautical miles (nm) of territorial waters.
Adjacent to this, coastal states have the exclusive right to exploit the natural resources up to 200nm of an exclusi...