The South China Sea Arbitration Decisions on Jurisdiction and Rule of Law Concerns.

This Editorial Comment attempts to identify the violations of rule of law principles in the jurisdictional decisions in the South China Sea arbitration. These include the questionable composition of the tribunal with four EU citizens, and the tribunal's failure to take notice of publicly available positions of China, to give effect to those taken notice of, to complete the required analysis, and to respect the consistency requirement. The comment will highlight the consequences from these issues as well as the validity and force of the awards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]