The 4th South China Sea Workshop

Cooperation in the South China Sea: from Dispute Management to Ocean Governance, by Nguyen Dang Thang

The South China Sea (SCS) has long been of interest to scholars of international law and international relations.[1] But attention has been paid almost exclusively to the simmering territorial disputes in the SCS. While this is justified by the concern that such disputes pose a threat to regional peace and stability, that the management of the territorial disputes in the SCS dominates existing literature may belie the fact that problems associated with the use and management of oceans in general and the South China Sea in particular are interrelated and should be addressed in a holistic way. This paper canvasses for a more comprehensive approach to cooperation in the SCS through the prism of ocean governance.