India ’carefully studying’ UN tribunal’s verdict in SCS row

New Delhi: India is ‘carefully studying’ the verdict by an UN-backed tribunal which on Tuesday ruled that China has no legal basis to claim ‘historic rights’ to islands in South China Sea.
‘India has noted the Award of the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the matter concerning the Republic of the Philippines and the Peoples Republic of China and is studying it carefully,’ External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.  The Permanent Court of Arbitration said in a statement that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’. Ruling out against China in a bitter row over territorial claims in South China Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ‘concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’.” (PTI)