On January 18-19, 2018, the ARF Workshop on Enhancing Regional Maritime Law Enforcement Cooperation was held in Nha Trang, Vietnam. The workshop was jointly organized by Vietnam, Australia, and the European Union. It was undertaken by the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was attended by more than 40 experts and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ocean Law Enforcement in more than 20 countries and international organizations including the United States, China, Australia, the European Union, Japan, India, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. This workshop is the first activity of its kind to implement the ARF Ministerial Statement on Enhancing Cooperation among Maritime Law Enforcement Agencies. Participants in the workshop talked about maritime security challenges in the region and the need for stronger cooperation among maritime law enforcement agencies. They also reviewed maritime law enforcement cooperation in Asia-Pacific and cooperation for regional agencies.

Invited by the organizer of the workshop, Prof. Kong Lingjie, Deputy Dean of our institute, attended the forum and made a speech on the consultations between China and ASEAN member states on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and the maritime law enforcement cooperation in the region. In his speech, he recalled the consultation process between China and ASEAN on the "Code" and analyzed the "Declaration on the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea", the guidelines for the implementation of the "Declaration" and the related contents of the "Code" framework concerning maritime law enforcement cooperation. From the view of international law，he explored the nature of the “Code” and the international law basis for including maritime law enforcement cooperation into the negotiation of the “Code”. He also called on the territorial and maritime disputing parties in the South China Sea to exercise restraint and refrain from adopting unilateral and provocative “maritime law enforcement”, in order to create and maintain a good political environment for textual consultations of the “Code”.

(Edited by Fu Shanshan，Xiong Shiyao)