Video On Demand

The Banyan Tree Leadership Forum with Antonio Carpio

October 5, 2015 • 2:00 – 4:00 pm EDT

The CSIS Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies is pleased to host a Banyan Tree Leadership Forum featuring Antonio T. Carpio, Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

The lecture will discuss China’s nine-dash line claim as the root cause of the South China Sea disputes, and show how it encroaches on the maritime zones of other coastal states. It will argue that the recent creation by China of artificial islands in the Spratlys is part of a design by China to control the South China Sea for economic and military purposes. The lecture will explain how the nine-dash line claim, and the activities by China to enforce it, violate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and threaten peace, security, and stability in the region. The lecture will argue that the nine-dash line claim has no historical basis and that throughout Chinese history, the southernmost territory of China has been Hainan Island. The lecture will suggest a possible resolution of the dispute whereby China would return to the original intent of the 1947 nine-dash line, articulated by President Ma Ying-Jeou of Taiwan, as a claim to islands and their maritime zones that are recognized under international law.

Justice Carpio studied law at the University of the Philippines’ College of Law, and was admitted to the bar in 1975. He immediately went into private practice, establishing Carpio Villaraza and Cruz LLP. In 1992, Justice Carpio was appointed Chief Presidential Legal Counsel in the Office of the President of the Philippines, and on October 26, 2001, he was sworn in as a member of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Justice Carpio has received the Presidential Medal of Merit, the Outstanding Achievement in Law Award from the Ateneo de Manila Alumni Association, and an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Ateneo de Davao University.
 

Ernest Z. Bower