Sea. In March, the Philippines complained that Chinese patrol boats had harassed a Philippine oil exploration vessel in disputed waters near the Spratlys, and subsequently filed a formal protest at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Philippines submission to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, 2013–2016 On 22 January 2013, the Republic of the Philippines instituted arbitral proceedings against the China (PRC) in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). On 19 February 2013, China rejected and returned the Philippines' Notification. The Permanent Court of Arbitration acts as Registry in this arbitration. Philippine Justice Antonio T. Carpio states that the case is solely a maritime dispute, and not territorial in nature. The Philippines seeks clarification from the tribunal as to whether China's nine-dash line can negate the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone as guaranteed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), of which China is a signatory. As part of the case, the Philippines also seeks clarification on whether rocks barely (1.8-meter) above water at high tide, (such as Scarborough Shoal), generate a EEZ, or only a territorial sea. Clarification of whether China can appropriate low-tide elevations, such as the Mischief Reef and the Subi Reef within the Philippines' EEZ, have also been included in the case. "The Philippines is not asking the tribunal to delimit by nautical measurements overlapping EEZs between China and the Philippines. The Philippines is also not asking the tribunal what country has sovereignty over an island, or rock above water at high tide, in the West Philippine Sea." According to a PCA press release on 12 July 2016 "[The] Tribunal concluded that, as between the Philippines and China, there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources, in excess of the rights provided for by the Convention, within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’". Diplomatic moves 1992 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea On 22 July 1992, ASEAN issued a declaration on the South China Sea, emphasising that the dispute should be solved peacefully without resorting to violence. 1995 Agreement Following a 1995 dispute between the PRC and the Philippines, an ASEAN-brokered agreement was reached between the PRC and ASEAN member nations whereby one country would inform the other of any military movement within the disputed territory, and that there would be no further construction. The agreement was promptly violated by PRC