China must be seething. A ruling of the international tribunal in The Hague that says China has no historical rights over the waters of the South China Sea has enraged Beijing like never before. To be told that you are wrong is not easy to swallow and certainly not by the second largest economy in the world. But, as China has painfully discovered, claims must have a legal backing. Beijing has rejected the ruling on grounds that the issue concerns national sovereignty which cannot be decided by the tribunal. This is a very small fig leaf to hide behind and Beijing knows it. The case was brought before the tribunal in 2013 by The Philippines which claimed that China had violated its territorial waters by building an artificial island and impinged on its fishing rights. The nine-dash line used by China to indicate its claims on the map usurps the territorial waters of Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei. Being a powerful neighbour, the smaller nations are in no position to take on China. Although the ruling cannot be enforced, it represents a moral and legal victory for the smaller nations. In order to claim its place in the world, Beijing cannot be seen as a bully and it will and must attempt to sign agreements with smaller nations which would give it what it wants in return for something back, not the ideal bargaining position that Beijing would have hoped for.
Labour rights in the EU
Since the UK’s vote in favour of Brexit, the free movement of workers has emerged as the key battleground of Britain’s future negotiations on a new relationship with the European Union. Although the public debate frequently refers to free movement of people, it is really the free movement rights of workers that are given most protection in the EU. Free movement of workers is the third of four freedoms established in the European Economic Community’s founding Treaty of Rome “…
