Interpreting the Arguments of China and the Philippines in the South China Sea Territorial Dispute: A Relevance-Theoreti
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Interpreting the Arguments of China and the Philippines in the South China Sea Territorial Dispute: A Relevance‑Theoretic Perspective Justine Iscah F. Madrilejos1 · Rachelle Ballesteros‑Lintao2
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The South China Sea territorial dispute has been a contentious issue in the international community. In the course of 3 years, China and the Philippines had undergone arbitral proceedings over the maritime rights and entitlements in the South China Sea. As the Permanent Court of Arbitration reached its decision, this paper aims to examine the interpretation process of the Arbitral Tribunal in the judgment of the South China Sea conflict between China and the Philippines. The primary objective of the study is to reconstruct or explain how the Tribunal came up with its interpretation of the written arguments presented by the parties involved and to distinguish whether such reconstruction the Tribunal has successfully interpreted or made sense of the said arguments and submissions. Doing so would necessitate a pragmatic analysis– the relevance-theoretic account of human communication and cognition. Data analyzed include written submissions and arguments as well as the legal documents used during the arbitral process. Using content analysis, the data were evaluated through applying the tool of interpretation based on the criteria set by the three conditions of the relevance theory: (1) logical condition, (2) pragmatic condition, and (3) condition of optimal relevance. This paper argues that in order for the addressee of an utterance, in this case the Arbitral Tribunal, to attain a successful interpretation, it should meet these three conditions. This study found that the reconstruction of the interpretation based on the three conditions showed that the Tribunal had attained a valid and correct interpretation of the Philippines’ and China’s arguments. Furthermore, the paper asserts that implied conclusion and the contextual assumptions can be a guiding principle for the cognitive comprehension or interpretation of legal texts. Keywords South China Sea · Legal interpretation · Relevance theory · Tool of interpretation · Forensic linguistics
* Rachelle Ballesteros‑Lintao [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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J. I. F. Madrilejos, R. Ballesteros‑Lintao
1 Introduction Arbitration has been increasingly on the rise as an efficient method for dispute settlement such as international commercial and territorial conflicts. It is a settlement method in which a neutral third party, the Arbitral Tribunal, imposes a legally binding decision upon administering evidentiary hearings and reviewing the parties’ arguments and written submissions [1]. The Arbitral Tribunal is a panel of arbitrators which will act as judge/s and render a decision based on the arguments and evidence presented by the parties involved. Presently, the South China Sea Arbitration has been a contentious issue in the international community. For decades,
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