Carl Schmitt and The Taking of the South China Sea

Abstract

China has established a string of synthetic islands in the belt of the South China Sea. Then it militarized those islands and began claiming possession of the entire region. Under the body of Carl Schmitt’s theories at the Nomos of the earth and the relation of political enmity, this work aims to explain the consequences of this issue for the international legal order. To this purpose, we clarify the idea of Nomos of the earth and stress its relevance for the development of International Law. Then, we describe the international legal system on the Nations of the Sea, namely The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). We also exhibit the strategic value of the South China Sea and the current framing of those problems inside present day international law. However, we argue that the mere deployment of law enforcement cannot settle the situation. For the only country which could effectively challenge the new South China Sea Nation, given the volume of the Chinese financial and navy power, is the USA. Hence, this work explains how the relationship among the two powers, i.e., on the one hand, the democratic capitalist United States of America and, on the other hand, the dictatorial communist China, grew to what Carl Schmitt describes as a relation of enmity. An enmity stems from the ultimate existential conflict among groups, that could in the end lead to war. It is, then, from the conflict between the US and China that will emerge a new Nomos of the earth as well as a new law regulating the possession of the South China Sea.