25/06/2013
The ITLOS has named Thomas Mensah, the first ITLOS head, as president of the 5-member arbitral tribunal that is hoped to settle the two countries' dispute over portions of the South China Sea.
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesman Raul Hernandez, who confirmed this Tuesday, June 25, said ITLOS president Shunji Yanai appointed Mensah last June 21. The ITLOS informed the Philippines about this on the same day.
Mensah will take this post after the arbitral tribunal's former president, Chris Pinto of Sri Lanka, resigned due to conflict of interest. Pinto's wife is Filipino.
Now 81 years old, Mensah served as the first president of ITLOS from 1996 to 1999. He is currently the deputy chairman of the International Foundation of the Law of the Sea.
He worked for over two decades at the International Maritime Organization in London, as legal counsel and assistant secretary general. He also taught at the World Maritime University for almost a decade.
Read more at Rappler
Click here for latest South China Sea news
In the past few years, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has been expanding its activities in the South China Sea in particular and the Indo-Pacific in general.
On July 5, a week before hosting the 2023 NATO Summit, Lithuania released its own Indo-Pacific Strategy, becoming the 6th European country to devise such document (after France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the Czech Republic, if not including the EU). A few observations could be made from a...
On the 7th anniversary of the final ruling rendered by the Arbitral Tribunal in the arbitration between the Philippines and China concerning the South China Sea (July 12, 2016 - July 12, 2023), some countries, including claimants and non-claimants, issued statements expressing their positions regarding...
On 28 April, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued its final Judgment on the dispute concerning the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, finally ending the dispute that had lasted for over three years. Both Mauritius...
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu officially visited Russia from April 15th to April 17th, 2023. The visit was closely monitored by the West due to their belief that the increasingly closer relationship between China and Russia, both politically and militarily, may result in China’s decision to provide...
---Copy.png&w=200)
