INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STATUS OF THE SPRATLY ARCHIPELAGO IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE XX CENTURY

Abstract

The Spratly Archipelago is the object of the most acute controversy in the South China Sea territorial dispute. The key legal problem is the uncertainty of the international legal status of the archipelago, which has become the root cause for the consistent escalation of contradictions between the claimants. After the signing of the Sino-Vietnamese Border Agreement in 1887 and until the beginning of the Second World War Great Britain, France and Japan were the main claimants to the disputed territories, but no specific international legal acts unambiguously fixing the status of the Spratlys were adopted. The activities of the claimant countries were mainly of a research or commercial nature and were conditioned by foreign policy and economic interests. At the same time, the activity of states in the disputed territories was accompanied by mutual protests, including from other states. From 1939 and until the end of World War II, Japan exercised control over the Spratlys. At the end of the war, in accordance with the provisions of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which was the most important legal outcome of this period in the context of the territorial dispute, Japan was forced to renounce all right, title and claim to the archipelago. The conclusion substantiates that the main issue of the international legal status of the Spratlys was the uncertainty of the San Francisco Treaty, as the latter did not determine the sovereignty of the disputed territories. Among other reasons for the uncertainty, the author declares the specific geophysical characteristics of the archipelago, the lack of data on natural resource deposits, political contradictions and non-participation in negotiations by some key states.