Research About The Applicable Objects Of The Code For Unplanned Encounters At Sea In South China Sea

Various disputes exist because of different understandings of the coastal countries on the ownership of islands(or reefs)and the maritime delimitation in the South China Sea,which resulted from the complicated historical issues.In order to protect their respective maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea(SCS),the coastal states have strengthened their cruising on relevant maritime regions.But meanwhile,it also caused frequent incidents of unplanned encounters among the fishing vessels,law enforcement vessels and even warships(including naval aircraft)of various countries.These incidents caused a continuous escalation of conflicts and deterioration of maritime security in SCS.In order to reduce the risk of conflict escalation caused by the misunderstandings among the navies in SCS,in September 2016,Ghina and the ASEAN countries issued a joint statement confirming the application of Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea(CUES)in SCS.However,some scholars have found that there are some problems in the application of the CUES in SCS.They hold the view that the scope of application of CUES should be extended to law enforcement vessels because the unplanned encounters in SCS mainly take place among the law enforcement vessels,and only in this way can we handle the incidents effectively.At the end of 2016,the Chinese navy captured a U.S.unmanned submarine vehicle(USV)in SCS.This incident has aroused heated discussions and gave an inspiration to this paper.The unmanned maritime vehicles(UMV)have brought a new challenge to CUES with the development of the new technology,but the legal status of UMV has not yet reached a conclusion.This paper aims to discuss the applicable objects of the CUES in SCS.First of all,this paper gives an overview of the International Maritime Security Law and the current situation of SCS's maritime security,and then raises the topic of application of CUSE in SCS through the characteristics of the maritime security in SCS.Secondly,after analyzing the contents of CUES,then we can find the necessity and problems of applying CUES in SCS.Thirdly,this paper will discuss a hot topic,namely,whether CUES can be applied to law enforcement vessels.This paper will focus on the relationship between law enforcement vessels and warships and the legal status of law enforcement vessels,and then comes to the conclusions.Finally,this paper will analyze UMV in a similar way and concludes whether CUES can be applied to UMV.There are mainly three innovations in this paper.First of all,this paper analyzes the problems of CUES from the perspective of two applicable objects(law enforcement vessels and USVs).However,there are few domestic scholars have researched on CUES systematically.Secondly,this paper will analyze the proposal for applying CUES to law enforcement vessels and try to draw the conclusions and give some practical advices.Last but not the least,the development of unmanned vehicle technology will bring a series of legal problems in the future.This paper hopes to lay a foundation for solving the problems of CUES that may arise in the future by analyzing the relevant legal issues of UMV.